Transmutable Explorations

Tag: Google Fit

  • Tracking Health and Performance Metrics

    Tracking Health and Performance Metrics

    I remember reading about the Quantified Self movement in the early 2000s. Even though this was something that people were experimenting with for years, I felt that it was a revolutionary approach to understanding and improving our health and well-being.  In the early days, it was difficult to collect and analyze all of the data that would be useful to collect.  During this time, I’ve witnessed the incredible potential of wearable technology and mobile apps to revolutionize the way we track and optimize our health and performance.   In this article, I’ll share my insights on how I leverage the currently available tools in tracking health metrics.

    What is the Quantified Self Movement?

    The Quantified Self movement is a community of individuals who track and measure various aspects of their lives using wearable devices, apps, and other technologies.  By collecting data on their habits, behaviors, and physiological responses, they aim to improve their health, performance, and overall well-being.  The movement is rooted in the idea that self-knowledge through tracking health metrics leads to self-improvement.

    Early Challenges

    In the early days of the Quantified Self (QS) movement, there were several challenges that enthusiasts faced.  One of the main difficulties was the lack of user-friendly technology.  The limited availability of consumer products capable of tracking health metrics created a high barrier to entry for QS membership.  Many early adopters had to create their own sensors and devices to track the data they wanted.  This required a significant amount of technical knowledge and resources.

    Additionally, data privacy and security were major concerns. With the rise of digital tracking and data collection, individuals had to be cautious about what information they shared and with whom. There were also concerns about the potential misuse of personal data by companies and organizations.

    Both of these challenges created a ‘burden of tracking’, even before most interested individuals got to the ‘burden of analysis’.  This led to a general disinterest in the movement from many people.  Despite these challenges, early adopters of the Quantified Self movement were passionate about pushing the boundaries of self-tracking and exploring new ways to improve their lives using data. Their dedication and innovation laid the foundation for the thriving community we see today.

    Quantified Self Today

    Today, the QS movement can leverage a wide range of consumer grade technologies and tools that enable individuals to easily track various aspects of their lives. The community continues to grow, with more people embracing self-tracking as a means of optimizing their health and performance.

    One of the biggest changes in the Quantified Self movement is the increased accessibility of technology.  Gone are the days of building your own sensors and devices; now, there are numerous options available for consumers to choose from, making it easier than ever to get started with self-tracking.  Additionally, advancements in data privacy and security have made it possible for individuals to track their metrics with greater peace of mind.

    As the movement becomes more mainstream, the ‘burden of tracking’ is starting to go away.  The current challenge is now shifting to the ‘burden of analysis’ of sifting through the abundance of collected data.  The struggle for many is now with interpreting and using their metrics effectively.

    Why Track Health Metrics?

    There are several compelling reasons why someone might want to become involved with the Quantified Self movement:

    Increased Awareness/Self-Improvement

    By tracking and analyzing data related to your health, habits, and performance, you can gain valuable insights into your life and make informed decisions about how to optimize it.  Whether you’re an athlete, entrepreneur, or simply someone looking to optimize your daily life, the insights gained from self-tracking can help you identify areas for improvement and make changes accordingly.

    Improved Health/Performance

    Tracking health metrics can help you develop a greater understanding of your body and how it functions, leading to better overall health and well-being.  By monitoring your vital signs and other health metrics, you may be able to detect potential health issues early on, allowing for timely intervention and treatment.  Once a baseline is established, you can manage existing conditions or monitor how various interventions impact you directly.

    Community

    The Quantified Self movement is a thriving community of individuals who are passionate about self-improvement and innovation. By becoming involved, you can connect with like-minded people and learn from their experiences and insights.  The Quantified Self movement is at the forefront of innovation in health and technology, with new tools and solutions emerging regularly. By participating, you can be among the first to experience and benefit from these advancements.

    How To Quantify Your Self

    So how do you go about quantifying yourself?  I’ll enumerate the steps that I think are most important given the current state of things.

    Identify Goals

    The best first step in my opinion is to be clear on ‘why’ you’re doing this.  Are you managing an existing condition? Is there an area of your life that you are trying to improve?  Identifying clear goal(s) in the beginning will help ease both the ‘burden of tracking’ and the ‘burden of analysis’.

    Prioritize the Data Points

    The next step is to identify and prioritize the data that you want to track.  You should have a clear idea on how these datapoints tie into your goals.

    Develop a Storage Plan

    Next, you need to create a plan for how you are going to store your data.  You also need to think about how you are going to analyze this data after it’s collected and be sure that your storage plan supports this.  You should have an idea of how you can get all your data out if you’re relying on a 3rd party system.

    As someone who’s completely invested in the Android ecosystem, my choice has become Google Health Connect.  Google Health Connect is a platform that allows users to centralize and manage their health and fitness data from various apps and devices. It aims to streamline the process of tracking and monitoring personal health information, making it easier for individuals to gain insights into their well-being.  There is also a defined extension method.  This makes it easy for me to develop apps that integrate with Google Health Connect both for entering and analyzing data.

    Identify Collection Methods

    Now that you have an idea of what data you want to collect and how you want to store it, you can narrow down which devices/software support both of these decisions.  Because of its ubiquity in the Android/Google ecosystem, this is another reason why I leaned toward using Google Health Connect as my data storage mechanism.  Almost every device or app that I would conceivably use is already integrated.

    Start Collecting Data!

    It’s time to let the data start streaming in!  At this point, start playing around with your analytics mechanism(s) to make sure that everything looks good.  It’s important to establish a good looking baseline before trying to make decisions based on your data.

    Iterate/Experiment

    Chances are, the first pass through these steps, you’ll find something that doesn’t quite look right and/or isn’t working.  Go back through all these steps until you have everything working in a way that allows you to establish your baseline metrics.  Once you get to this point, it’s a great time to start focusing on improvement or add more datapoints!

    Tracking Health Metrics

    I track a lot of datapoints.  Despite this, there are a handful of areas that I feel are most important to keep regular tabs on because of how easy it is to influence them with everything that you do.  I’ll also discuss how I monitor each of these.

    Sleep

    I keep becoming more and more convinced that sleep is the cornerstone of our health and wellbeing.  It is essential for physical and mental restoration.  I’m mostly concerned with my sleep duration and the amount of time I spend in REM/Deep sleep.  Another good indicator is your resting heart rate while sleeping.  I use the Oura ring to monitor all of these things.

    Activity and Movement

    It’s important to regularly move your body.  I started just by tracking daily steps and trying to adhere to a goal every day.  Eventually, I created a more rigorous workout program to keep me progressing with my body weight workout routine.  Most recently, I’ve set more detailed goals around cardio, identifying the minimal amount of time per week that I want to spend in each heart rate zone.  For me, the FitBit works great for tracking all of these things.

    Blood Work

    I get a full blood panel done at least every 6 months.  There are a ton of biomarkers that I consider crucial and I use InsideTracker to manage this because they include almost all of them.  I would love to see better Google Health Connect integration here because I currently copy this data into MyQuest and SelfDecode in order to make the best use of the data.

    Heart Rate Variability (HRV)

    HRV is a measure of the variation in time between each heartbeat. It’s a powerful indicator of your body’s ability to adapt to stress and recover.  I use this as a measure of determining when I should ‘push’ myself during a workout, etc.  Several devices I use track HRV, but I use the data from the Oura ring most.

    Body Composition

    I tell people all the time that losing weight isn’t always a good thing.  While I definitely track my weight, more important to me is knowing the specifics of my actual body composition.  I want to always be losing mostly body fat while preserving lean mass/muscle.  The only way to guarantee that you’re doing this while losing weight is by keeping tabs on your body composition.  I use a Withings scale to do this.

    Nutrition

    This is an area where the ‘burden of tracking’ is still real.  I’d like to do much more here, but the tools just aren’t quite there yet.  I haven’t found an accurate caloric and macronutrient tracking solution that I feel is worth spending the time on.  The reliable data that I collect here consists of a few things:

    • Use the Zero app to track the time that I spend ‘fasting’.  This allows me to look at how fasting impacts bloodwork measures and body composition.
    • Use the Oura app to track when I take/stop taking supplements.  I use this to define experiment boundaries so I can see how everything else is impacted during that time.
    • Occasionally use a CGM and the Levels app to identify how foods/behaviors impact my glucose response.

    Mindfulness

    Another measurement that I’m looking to expand upon is in tracking my mindfulness state.  Currently, I use the Oura ring and app to track meditation and breathwork sessions.  This takes on a form of heart rate variability training, but anything that decreases my body temp, resting heart rate and breaths per minute is a win for me.  I’ve been investigating picking up a Muse headband to start tracking brain wave state while doing this.  Has anyone used the Muse device?  I’m interested in hearing about it if you have.

    Conclusion

    The Quantified Self movement has come a long way since its inception.  With the availability of more user-friendly technology and a growing community of enthusiasts, it’s easier than ever to get started with tracking health metrics.  As the movement continues to evolve, we can expect to see even more innovative ways to use data to optimize our lives and achieve our goals.  Remember, the key to success lies not in the technology itself, but in how you apply these tools to your daily life. Embrace the power of the Quantified Self and start optimizing your health and performance today!

  • Improving HRV

    Improving HRV

    I was introduced to heart rate variability (HRV) when I got serious about getting in shape.  Many people recommended monitoring HRV as a means of knowing when to push a workout further.  My HRV has always been low relative to others.  Despite this, it was clear that I always felt my best when it was at the higher end of my regular range.  Pretty much since this realization, I’ve been experimenting with various ways of improving HRV.

    What is HRV?

    Heart Rate Variability is a measure of the changes in the amount of time between beats of your heart.  It is often measured in milliseconds.  This number is highly individual.  It’s not something that can really be compared across individuals.  Its only use is in comparing your current value to your historical range of HRV values.

    How is HRV measured?

    HRV changes as a natural function of the autonomic nervous system.  The sympathetic nervous system decreases the amount of time between heartbeats due to a faster heartbeat.  The parasympathetic, which typically slows the heart beat, increases that time.  Many modern wearables are capable of measuring HRV.  There are different techniques for doing this, so always compare values using the same form of measurement.  HRV changes throughout the day and it’s best to measure while in a rested and relaxed state.

    What Does HRV Indicate?

    In general, a higher HRV is better than a lower value.  HRV is a good indicator of how ‘recovered’ someone is.  When you are in your higher range of values, you are likely to be in a state where you are more resilient to stressors.  Lower range values are a good sign that something is actively stressing your body.

    HRV provides an interesting way to evaluate lifestyle choices that can lead toward a healthier life.  Things that increase HRV tend to lead to overall healthier outcomes.  A downward trend in HRV over a few days is often a sign that it’s time to reevaluate what you are currently doing.  We can use this metric to identify opportunities for us to continue pushing ourselves as well as an indication that we need to take a break.

    How am I Improving HRV?

    The feedback loop that HRV provides is a great quantitative way to measure the effectiveness of health oriented interventions.  I’ve been using this as the basis for many experiments over the years on improving HRV.  Many ways of raising HRV involve dedication to a regular practice.  This is expected given that improving HRV is generally correlated with prioritizing good life choices.   Things that I’ve found that have improved my HRV include:

    Regular Exercise

    Obviously having a regular exercise routine is going to benefit your overall cardiovascular metrics.  HRV may take a hit while you’re exercising, but overtime, exercise (especially HIIT) results in an overall higher HRV.

    Circadian Rhythm Alignment

    Waking up, going to sleep and eating that aligns with the daily rhythms of the sun does wonders for improving HRV.

    Time in Nature

    I discovered this by accident.  I always noticed that my HRV was always higher for a few days after a backpacking trip.  Initially, I attributed this to the fact that backpacking is great exercise.  I’ve since done additional experiments that show that I have a positive HRV trend just from sleeping in nature without the actual exercise associated with backpacking.

    Breathwork

    A regular breathwork practice generally leads to less stress.  Less stress tends to translate into a higher HRV.  There are also certain forms of breathing that can directly raise HRV in the moment.  I describe some of these techniques in my intro to breathwork.

    Regular Mindfulness/Gratitude Practice

    Once again, practicing mindfulness and/or gratitude tends to lower your overall stress.  This also is noticeable at improving HRV.  Not all forms of mindfulness that I practice involves active breathwork or time in nature, so this deserves a section on its own.

    Photobiomodulation

    It’s not clear what the mechanism of action is here, but I’ve tried several variants of photobiomodulation that all seem to be effective at improving HRV.  It could be the fact that red light therapy is useful for combating Seasonal Affective Disorder, but maybe it’s something else?

    Gut Microbiome

    I recently participated in an Akkermansia trial.  During the trail, I tracked a consistent >10% increase in my HRV after the first few days of taking it. I’ve seen very few things that have such a profound positive effect.   After the trial ended, my HRV went back to my previous baseline.  I’m waiting for the product I was taking during the trial to be commercially available so I can purchase it.  Given recent studies that are identifying links between the gut microbiome and things like anxiety/depression, the mechanism of action for this impact creates some interesting hypotheses.  I look forward to trying additional experiments in this area.

    Wearables

    In addition to wearables for tracking HRV, I’ve tried one that was actually effective at improving HRV.  Regularly using the Apollo Neuro consistently raised my HRV.  This was most noticeable when I did something that would typically lower my HRV.  If you want to know the good, the bad and the ugly, read my Apollo Neuro Review.

    Things that Lower HRV

    All of these health improving practices are great for improving HRV.  It may be obvious that not adhering to these has the opposite effects, but there are even a few other things that negatively impact HRV.

    Aging

    In general, your HRV lowers with age.  Many of the practices that I’ve adopted for improving HRV have allowed me to move my baseline HRV higher even though I’ve been meticulously tracking these values for more than 7 years.

    Mental/Physical Stress

    A hard workout will lower HRV in the moment even though regular exercise will eventually move it in the opposite direction.  The same can be said for the hot temperatures of the sauna.  Maybe the not so obvious HRV lowerer is mental stress.  When I have a few days of anxiety inducing stress it is definitely reflected in a lower HRV score.

    Ongoing or Impending Illness

    An impending or ongoing illness will result in lower HRV scores.  I’ve participated in two separate wearable trials working on identifying impending illness before noticeable symptoms develop.  HRV fluctuation was one of the indicators used in both of these trials.

    Poor Sleep

    Circadian Rhythm misalignment and poor quality sleep in general immediately result in lower HRV the next day.  I’ve noticed that ‘shift work’ has a negative impact even if I get good quality sleep.

    Alcohol

    By far, the habit that I have that has had the worst impact on HRV is alcohol.  Even a drink or two close to bed will have a noticeable detrimental impact.

    Conclusion

    These are just a few of the things that I’ve noticed that have an impact on HRV for me.  There are so many other things that I plan to investigate and I will update this post with my findings.

    So what do you do to improve your HRV?  What have you noticed that has a negative effect?  What device do you use to measure HRV and how do you use it to drive the decisions that you make every day?

  • Bodyweight Workout Routine

    Bodyweight Workout Routine

    I’ve tried many workouts over the years.  Cardio, weightlifting, calisthenics, only playing sports, it’s always been something that kind of annoyed me.  Some would work… others, only for a time and then a plateau would reach and no more gains could be made.  Eventually, I settled on a bodyweight workout routine that I’ve been able to progress that continues to work for me.  Read on if you’re interested in learning more about why I choose and how I perform my bodyweight workout routine.

    Why a Bodyweight Workout Routine?

    So why a “bodyweight workout routine”?  After trying just about everything, I’ve concluded that the best workout for me must include the following:

    • require minimal equipment; I travel a good bit and don’t want lack of access to specialized equipment to make it easy for me to skip a workout.
    • a way to do a full body workout in a minimal amount of time
    • maximize a full range of natural motion to minimize injuries
    • prioritize building muscle without a complicated means of altering the routine when hitting plateaus.
    • emphasize Functional Strength training

    The Exercises

    The Bodyweight Workout Routine that I follow focuses on a few core exercises.  These are arranged in such a way as to hit most of the major muscle groups with the fewest number of exercises.

    Push

    The push exercises I use are mostly pushup variants.  I alternate with dips especially when my pushups have not been progressing in order to change things up.

    Pull

    My pull exercises include pull ups, chin ups and inverted rows.  I also incorporate my ‘pull’ muscles in some of my core exercises.

    Legs

    I exercise my legs with air squats and walking lunges.  Even though I do these with a weighted vest, I’ve been working on being able to do proper single leg squats to progress further.  I do these assisted or alternate with shrimp squats at this point in time.

    Core

    I try to incorporate core exercises in everything I do.  This occurs by always being mindful of the ‘Hollow Body Hold‘.  In addition to this, I incorporate planks, V-Ups and hanging knee raises.  Hanging Knee raises also hit my pull muscles at the same time.

    Cardio

    My cardio is mostly walking and hiking/rucking.  I do sprints one day a week.  On my active recovery days, I do at least one High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) session focused on the ‘Nitric Oxide Dump‘.  When I refer to ‘light cardio’, it’s either unweighted walking or rebounding.

    Mobility

    For mobility, I use both Yoga and the 5 Tibetan Rites.  If I’m stuck on a progression and I think it’s due to a mobility issue, I’ll often factor in something that I’ve learned from more in depth calisthenics programs.  This is the area where my routine changes the most frequently.

    Useful Equipment

    My core routine consists of bodyweight exercises that I can do anywhere.  This being said, there are certain pieces of equipment that make things easier when I am home.  Most of this equipment is focused on making the movements safer or allow me to increase the difficulty.  The equipment that I find useful (and alternatives if you don’t have them) include:

    • A Multi-Grip Pull-Up Bar – This is probably the most important piece of equipment.  Without it, you’ll need to find a branch or other outcropping to do your ‘pull’ exercises on.  Most of these alternatives won’t give you the variance in how you can pull yourself up (and you’ll probably want a pair of gloves to protect your hands🤣).
    • Wooden Gymnastic Rings – I prefer to use gymnastic Rings for my ‘rowing’ exercises.  You can also use them for progressing and varying your ‘push’ exercises.  Without rings, a Dip Station also works.  Without either of these options you can use a properly weighted table or two chairs.
    • An Extra Thick Yoga/Pilates Mat – This is especially useful for ‘core’ exercises but it’s pretty much required if you’re going to also incorporate Yoga.  It also helps with progressing single leg exercises like shrimp squats.
    • A means of making exercises more difficult with resistance and/or added weight – My favorite things in this area is to start out with a weighted vest and adjustable ankle weights.  To really build muscle, you’ll want to add an Adjustable Dumbbell and Barbell Set.  To make the most out of loading your full range of motion, nothing beats a Stackable Resistance Bands Set.
    • A High Density Foam Roller – Eventually, you’re going to go a bit too hard and need some help with recovery.  A foam roller is a good first place to start for this.

    Progressing Your Bodyweight Workout Routine

    Since I want to avoid injury and being constantly fatigued, I target rep ranges for each of these exercises in the high hypertrophy/endurance range.  My last strength day of the week is meant for attempting to break personal records.  More about all this below when I discuss my day to day routine.  Before deciding your own structure, you need to set a baseline for each of the main exercises.  If you can do 15 – 20 reps max for each one, that’s a great place to start.  If not, you’ll need to find an easier version of the exercise where you can do 15 – 20 clean reps and progress from there.  I use this basic guide to push progressions and have helped people do pull ups with this pull progression guide.  There’s no shame in doing these easier versions, it’s the only way that you’ll progress to the more difficult ones.  If you find yourself plateauing with one progression but still unable to move to the next one with the proper rep range there are a few additional things you can do.  

    • Add more reps to the progression that you can do cleanly
    • Add some more weight to your current progression
    • Add resistance bands to the progression you’re trying to move to in an ‘assistive’ fashion
    • Sometimes, bouncing down to a lower progression with far more reps is necessary in order to correct form issues that you have that are preventing you from using the muscles necessary to progress

    I recently started using blood flow restriction (BFR) training with lighter weights to get more from my workouts.

    My Bodyweight Workout Routine Structure

    Now I’ll describe what I do each day of the week.  If something comes up, I’ll shuffle days if necessary, but I avoid having three of the same ‘types’ of days in a row.

    Every Day

    There are a few things that I strive to do every day.

    • Start every morning with the 5 Tibetan Rites.  This really gives me a burst of energy to start my day.  I’ve also been incorporating Pigeon Pose into this routine recently.
    • Walk a minimum of 11000 steps.  I do the bulk of this during three periods.  The first is after I’m done consuming my caffeine for the day.  The other two times is right after my meals for a bare minimum of 15 minutes.  I try to walk outside whenever possible.
    • Incorporate Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT);  I try to get as much ‘exercise’ that doesn’t look like exercise into my day as possible.  I’ll walk when I can drive, park at a distance, climb stairs, etc.
    • Bring glucose transporter type 4 to the surface of muscle cells before eating.  This is a ‘trick’ that I picked up from Tim Ferriss’ book The 4 Hour Body.  I mostly use air or isometric squats for this, but have played around with all the techniques that he mentions. 

    Day 1

    • Warm up with 5 min of light cardio
    • 3 sets of straight pushups 70% of your maximum number of reps
    • 3 sets of rows 70% of your maximum number of reps
    • 2 sets of walking lunges 50 reps
    • 2 sets of hanging knee raises 15 reps (each side)
    • 2 sets of V-Ups 15 reps

    Day 2

    This is an endurance/recovery focused day.

    I do one HIIT session (often with BFR) for about 10 minutes

    I do an additional workout after recovered that consists of:

    I’ll do a short Yoga session on this day as well.

    Day 3

    • Warm up with 5 min of light cardio
    • 3 sets of most advanced pushup progression 75% of your maximum number of reps
    • 3 sets of most advanced rowing progression 75% of your maximum number of reps
    • 2 sets of chin-ups 75% of your maximum number of reps
    • 2 sets of walking lunges 50 reps
    • 2 sets of hanging knee raises 15 reps (each side)
    • plank for maximum hold time

    Day 4

    This is an Active Recovery day.  I do one HIIT session (often with BFR) for about 10 minutes.  Otherwise I focus on longer walks and/or rucks.  I’ll often do a short Yoga session as well.

    Day 5

    This is the day for setting new records.  Getting 90% of your maximum reps is the minimum. What we really want to do here is move to a more advanced progression or add clean reps to the maximum that we can do in our current progression.  We then use this to reevaluate our plan for the next week.

    • Warm up with 5 min of light cardio
    • 1 set of pullups to 90% of your maximum
    • 1 set of most advanced pushups to 90% of your maximum
    • 2 sets of straight pushups 70% of your maximum number of reps
    • 2 sets of rows 70% of your maximum number of reps
    • 2 sets of walking lunges 50 reps
    • 2 sets of hanging knee raises 15 reps (each side)
    • 2 sets of V-Ups 20 reps

    Day 6

    • Warm up with 5 min of light cardio
    • 5 sets of sprinting as fast as you can for 100 meters with no more than 2 minutes rest between sets

    Otherwise, this is an Active Recovery day.  Focus on longer walks and/or rucks.  Do a short HIIT session if recovery for the week has been good.  Do some Yoga otherwise.

    Day 7

    Active Recovery

    • Longer hikes and/or rucks
    • Yoga and mobility exercises

  • Taking My Metabolic Fitness to new ‘Levels’

    Taking My Metabolic Fitness to new ‘Levels’

    My Levels Health Review

    I’m constantly doing more research into how to increase my overall healthspan.  It’s becoming increasingly clear, that ‘metabolic flexibility‘ is key. While many of the great diseases of the western world have genetic components, research is showing that genetic predisposition is greatly enhanced by poor metabolic fitness. I started practicing time restricted feeding and experimenting with supplements in an attempt to optimize my personal metabolic flexibility. Unfortunately, short of tracking time spent fasting and using a ketone based breath analyzer, there wasn’t really a great way to easily measure how well I was doing…. until I was invited to participate in the Levels beta program.  Here’s my Levels Health Review.

    What is Levels?

    The Levels program consists of two main parts: a continuous glucose monitor (CGM), and the Levels software. They also maintain an extensive blog with lots of great information.

    The CGM is a wearable that you painlessly attach to your upper arm. It inserts a filament into the fluid beneath the skin.  Here it will monitor your blood glucose levels for 14 days before you replace it with another unit. Levels uses the Abbott FreeStyle Libre system . You read data from the device using the Abbott supplied mobile app. This is done using the near–field communication (NFC) capabilities of your mobile phone. Just hold your device over the CGM several times a day and your data is synced with the app. You need to allow Levels access to this data in order to really reap the benefits of this program and use Levels’ software.

    The Levels software pulls the raw data that is collected by the Abbott app.  It then presents it in a much nicer format. It also integrates with other fitness apps/wearables. This allows you to see your data on a timeline that incorporates all of the things that you do. The Levels software killer feature though is the Zone comparison capability that allows you to conduct your own experiments. The ability to compare Zones is the basis for a beta feature that allows you to participate in ‘challenges’ by changing a single variable in the Zone.

    Does it work?

    Like most wearables, the value in Levels isn’t really in monitoring absolute values of your data points.  It’s in comparing the relative values specific to you over time. After installing a new CGM, the relative values were accurate for the 2 week lifetime of the device after a few hour adaptation period. At this point, you could consistently see what foods/activities radically raise and lower you blood glucose.

    Monitoring your relative values isn’t really necessary though as Levels makes this easy with the concept of a Metabolic Score. This is your rating for how well you did each day. This is where the real joy of using Levels starts to set in. I found myself constantly experimenting with items from my usual routine to find out what improved the Metabolic Score and what made it worse.

    Initially, I started looking for validation for the things that I was already doing with the expectation of improving my metabolic flexibility. I pretty much got universal confirmation on all of these practices. At least for me, they work at minimizing long blood glucose spikes. Some of these things include: using cinnamon and/or apple cider vinegar or doing some resistance training before meals, taking walks after meals, eating protein before carbs during meals.

    Levels Health Review Surprises!

    While reinforcing my already existing practices, I actually noticed some surprising things that I would have never been aware prior to wearing a CGM (and monitoring my results like a maniac!).

    Sauna

    The first big surprise that I came across was how the sauna impacted my blood glucose levels. For me, some of the biggest and longest lived spikes in blood glucose came while using or immediately after using the sauna. This is something that I haven’t had a chance to really start experimenting with, but is on my to do list for the future.

    Alcohol

    I was also surprised by how alcohol impacted my readings. I expected alcohol consumption to spike my blood glucose.  Surprisingly, most alcohols actually ended up doing the opposite (Notable exception are all of those trendy lactose containing ‘beers’). Levels has a great blog post on what exactly is happening here. After noticing this and then finding and reading that blog post, I’m now super careful about drinking immediately after fasting or while in ketosis and have found that having a drink before eating my largest meal of the day actually has a beneficial impact on my blood glucose levels.

    Discoveries When Correlating Data

    The most impactful thing that I’ve learned so far occurred by making correlations between the data obtained from Levels and the data from my Oura ring. As many regular readers know, I’m always trying to optimize my sleep. I was becoming convinced that nothing I did would resolve my ‘way more frequent than I would like’ nighttime restlessness and wakeups. Honestly, Levels wasn’t helping this because the CGM can only hold 8 hours of data without syncing it, so I found myself waking up earlier than I would want, concerned about syncing my data.

    This obsession about not losing data ultimately paid off when I mapped my Oura ring data, showing wake ups, with my data from Levels. I noticed that just about every major wakeup correlated with a bout of nocturnal hypoglycemia! I could write a whole post on how I went about diagnosing the cause of this issue, but it ultimately came down to me taking the wrong supplements before bed. These supplements, coupled with my time restricted feeding (and especially alcohol), would lead to a dramatic drop in blood glucose mid-night. I switched to taking the offending supplements at a different time of day. This prevented the blood glucose drop and my sleep has improved dramatically!

    Is Levels ‘worth it’?

    Using Levels on an every day basis ends up being a pricy endeavor. You need to purchase a new CGM every 2 weeks and deal with the social implications of wearing a device on your upper arm and scanning it constantly with your cell phone. Identifying the issue that was impacting my sleep (discussed above), made the time I spent testing Levels well worth it. I’ve also thought of several new experiments that I’d like to run, but I haven’t yet purchased additional CGMs. In addition to the cost, I have a few other items that have held me back from continuing using it.

    Software Issues

    One of my biggest issues was with the Levels software. I found that it was near impossible for me to use the challenges feature with the software hooked up to Google Fit. The ‘challenges’ require pretty much a 4 hour period where nothing is occurring outside of the actual ‘challenge’ experiment that you are testing. Something as simple as walking for a few steps that shows up as a workout during this time frame will make it impossible to use the feature. A suggestion that I would have is to allow some leniency here. Allow me to identify sections of the timeline where I know that the only difference is the variable that I am testing.

    Additionally, I would love the ability for Levels to push data into Google Fit rather than only consume data from it. This capability would have made analyzing things like my sleeping issue with my Oura data much easier.

    Social Issues

    Secondly, making it known that you’re a non-diabetic using a CGM results in an unbelievable amount of hate on social media.  Even in real life, you’ll receive hate from people who believe that you are responsible for all the ills of the public health system in the US. I haven’t seen any unbiased data that either support or disprove this claim.  Because of this, I can only offer my own opinion on this subject. I’m happy to share my opinion with anyone who wants to engage in a rational conversation about it. I’m glad to be shown evidence that convinces me otherwise, but I’m not interested in name calling and false accusations. I have some ideas on how this issue can be addressed.  I’m sure that Levels has thought about this as well.  This is likely thwarted by the arcane system we have in place for ‘approval’ of medical devices.

    Device Issues

    Finally, I’m really waiting for a better device.  Some combination of making a ‘CGM’ that doesn’t require me to sync religiously every 8 hours, is less obtrusive, and/or measures additional biomarkers beyond blood glucose will make me pay the current price in a heartbeat!

    Correcting Metabolic Issues

    Even with these drawbacks, I will continue to use Levels a few times a year. I’m interested in seeing how things progress both with their software and with my own Metabolic Fitness.  The adjustments to my habits that I’ve been able to make from being a Levels user have been EXTREMELY valuable. 

    Full Disclosure: I am an investor in Levels.  The software has evolved since this original post and I will be updating my Levels Health Review soon.

  • My Daily Ritual

    My Daily Ritual

    The thing I am asked about most often is some variant of “How are you able to do everything that you do?”… It’s usually buttressed by things like: “You have so many interests.”… “You’re married with kids, how do you have the time?” or “Do you ever have down time? I just want to watch Netflix when I get home.” I never really know how to respond to this… it really is just the way I live my life.  It has been for a long time.   After talking to people a bit about this and enduring constant quizzing, it seems that it might come down to my strict adherence to a daily ritual.

    The Daily Ritual

    I call this a ‘ritual‘ because it really is something that I’ve built up over decades with an explicit outcome in mind… to live the life that I live. It’s not a routine (a sequence of actions regularly followed; a fixed program.), and it’s not set in stone. I’m constantly iterating on this daily ritual to make it better for me. That’s also part of the key… this is FOR ME… it’s been iterated on for most of my life. It’s been adjusted to fit years of medical tests and customized for what I know about my genetic makeup.

    Every part of it has been vetted and tweaked to make it overall positive for my biochemistry. This ‘ritual’ likely won’t work for you.  In fact, it will be a horrible thing for many people.  Maybe by documenting it, there is something in here that you will find useful. Possibly, you will be inspired to start on the journey of creating you’re own. At least, you will get to see how things change over time because I plan on continuing to update this post as my process evolves.

    My Daily Ritual is an Evolution

    This is a LONG post. Everything documented here is the current state of my practice.  This arose from years of iteration from collecting data about myself in great detail and experimenting with things to improve various aspects of my life. I’m always experimenting and this post WILL NOT document experiments. There were many failures and I don’t discuss those here. This is only for things that have become part of my permanent daily ritual. If you want to know about my latest experiments, ask me about them the next time you see me. At any given time, there’s usually only one thing that I’m experimenting with.  This makes it easier to identify positive or negative correlations and eliminate additional variables that could be skewing results regarding my experiment hypothesis.

    Before Ritual Comes Analysis

    How do I collect and analyze this data? I’ve used tons of things over the years, but at this point it’s essentially custom software that uses the Google Fit platform as central storage. I use several commercial apps and hardware for data collection and everything that I use integrates with Google Fit. This makes for an easy integration point since the additional software that I write just needs to be able to use the Google Fit API to enter or consume data.

    For many years, I manually analyzed everything. Over the last few years, with the advancements in Machine Learning, I’ve been slowly building software to help with my analysis. Everything that has become a part of my daily ritual arose out of a desire to make a positive change to some monitored data point that I felt a need to improve. I won’t really dive into the details about specific data points for every single thing in this post.  If you’re curious about anything specific, feel free to ask.

    The Morning Ritual

    I tend to wake up about the same time every day. No alarm necessary as I try to never schedule anything so early that I would need one. I have a skylight in my bedroom.  This is useful for slowly nudging me to wake up as the sun comes up. Embracing my own personal Circadian Rhythms has been very beneficial for me.

    Getting good quality sleep is also critical to me. Sleep experimentation was probably one of the very first things I played around with in order to increase my productivity. I followed a polyphasic sleep schedule for years, but no longer do that since it’s not really compatible with having a family or a traditional job. It was likely useful in training myself to make the most out of the sleep that I get. This practice taught me how to fall asleep fast, get into a state of REM sleep quickly and spend more time in deep (delta wave) sleep.

    The Wake Up

    The first thing I do upon waking, is the same thing I do right before going to sleep. I lay in bed for a few minutes mindfully breathing and doing a series of eye movements. The purpose of both of these things is to get the day started right by allowing me to reflect on what I’m going to do and essentially ‘turning on’ my brain. This morning breathing takes on different forms (meant to energize me for the day) unlike my nightly version which always follows the same pattern and purpose (to get me in the right state for sleep).

    My sleep quality dictates how the rest of my day progresses. Most of the time, my sleep quality is high, occasionally things go awry and I have ritual adjustments for when this happens. I won’t really go into the specifics of the adjustments since it is a pretty rare occurrence… I do so many things to make sure that my sleep quality is always rock solid. I’ve used many products to monitor sleep quality over the years, but my current choice is by far the best, least intrusive method for me. I use the Oura app to check the details on my sleep quality right after completing my morning breathing routine.

    Hydrate

    I get out of bed and drink a glass of water to rehydrate. It also helps with getting consistent body related measurements.

    I take measurements with a bluetooth smart scale. The one I use measures weight, BMI, and mass for body fat, muscle, and bone. It also tracks percentages for everything including visceral fat. The app has it’s own trend tracking, but I ultimately settled on this model because it integrates with Google Fit.

    Get Moving

    I get moving soon after this in an effort to get the lymphatic system flowing after sleep. My morning starts with a quick yoga routine. This changes daily and is focused on increasing flexibility. The daily variance is mainly to focus on areas where I may be having issues or feel that I need improvement. The constant here is that there are certain ‘whole body’ flexibility enhancing postures that I do no matter what. In addition to these, the other constant is a mix of moves to sync the two hemispheres of my brain. The basic gist of how this can be done is described as the cross-crawl.   Finally, I do a quick rebounding routine that I’m still playing around with.

    Turn on Your Red Light

    At this point I get in a quick bout of red light therapy. Most days, this is a 10 minute HRV raising meditation using the ‘moments’ feature of the Oura Ring facing the Joovv followed by another 10 minutes that is focused on rehabbing any body part that feels like it could benefit from some photobiomodulation.

    I make a giant pot of tea that I sip on throughout the morning. I rotate between green, oolong and pu-erh teas. If I need an extra boost, I’ll make a cup of espresso as well. It’s important for me to get a healthy dose of caffeine early in the morning as I benefit greatly from Ben Greenfield’s Strike-Stroll-Shiver routine. I make sure to drink a few cups before getting a few steps in and then I throw on an ice pack vest for the first 20 minutes of my work day in order to bring on the ‘shiver’.

    You might notice that my morning ritual doesn’t include breakfast. I used to be a big advocate of ‘grazing’, but over the last few years I’ve become a complete advocate of pursuing Metabolic Flexibility.

    My work day

    At this point, my work day begins… I’ll do a quick scan of email and some dashboards that I have to see if there are any immediate fires that need to be put out. Usually there is nothing, but I find it great to get these out of the way ASAP. Notice that I don’t spend any time on non-essential email, social media, political news, etc. That can wait for another time since the mornings are for Getting Things Done (GTD).

    Getting Things Done

    The rest of my morning consists of complete focus on completing two objectives. One personal objective and one ‘work’ objective. I decide what these are at least a day before I start working on them. They meet the ‘next action‘ criteria from GTD… that means that I know exactly what needs to be done, there is no investigating, there are no unknowns at the time that I decide to work on them.  There is just a set of straight forward steps to actually get that objective done that requires some uninterrupted time to do them.   Most of the time, these are easy, sometimes they take longer or ‘unknown unknowns’ are discovered.

    Deciding What to Work on

    I mentioned above that I have at least two main objectives to focus on during the day.  Additionally, whatever I do is driven by the following:

    • At least once a week, I force myself to come up with one ‘new business’ Objective. This can be a new approach to lead generation, new source of revenue, or a new investment strategy. The time to do this is often spread throughout the week, but at the end of the week, I should always have a new Objective in this class of work that is mostly ready to be worked on. This serves to constantly get me thinking outside of the box with regards to diversifying revenue streams in order to insulate my lifestyle from any unforeseen circumstances that can jeopardize any one existing source of income.
    • Any remaining time I spend reading… I currently use Pocket to keep track of anything that I’d like to read that isn’t a physical book or stored in Google Play Books.

    If I finish early, I’ll dig into some email at this point (always time boxed) or review other objectives that are ready to be worked on and pick one of those. During this time, I try to remain focused on my task except for one allowable interruption…

    The Importance of Movement

    Another great feature of the Oura ring is that it will alert you if it feels that you haven’t moved enough over time. I’ve always felt that moving while working was extremely important. I’ve used standing desks for more than a decade.  Since standing wasn’t enough, I also purchased a FluidStance.

    The FluidStance is a balance board that you can stand on at your desk and based on what I’ve seen it is way more effective at increasing your activity/calorie burn than just standing alone. I’ll alternate using it and just standing flat on a mat throughout the day and my Oura ring will never alert me to get moving while doing that.

    Occasionally though, I will sit while working and I’ve developed a few quick routines to run through on Oura ring activity alerts that are designed to get my heart rate to ~80 percent of my max for 3 to 5 minutes. A mini trampoline near your desk is a great investment for meeting this need!

    Workout

    Even though I’m a huge fan of Incidental Activity as the majority of my exercise, I run through a vigorous short but dedicated workout routine.

    Most days, I finish the ‘workout’ portion of my day with 20 – 30 minutes in the sauna.  I use an infrared sauna and find that it helps both my recovery and sleep scores.  If you are interested, I have written about the benefits of my regular sauna use.

    The Mid Day Transition

    By the time mid day approaches, I’m almost always done with my two major objectives for the day. I mark the transition by taking a few minutes to stimulate my brain differently by learning another language. I use duolingo for this daily practice. You can find and follow me there by searching for my name. I’ll do another quick email checkin and then update/review my GTD lists. The goal here is to get any pending problems front of mind for the next part of my day.

    “Lunch”

    Now it’s time for my lunch… this is normally around 2PM unless I’m meeting someone for a more traditional lunch time meeting. My rules for what I eat aren’t extremely strict… just a balanced meal that minimizes processed foods and sugars. I tend to keep it low-carb since I like to save my carbs for beer 😀 There is a ritual for how I break my intermittent fast though.

    Breaking the Fast

    I break my fast by drinking an Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) cocktail. This is simply one tablespoon of ACV (with the mother) in a full glass of water, with a pinch of sea salt and cinnamon (sometimes I had a touch of lemon juice or an electrolyte powder instead of the salt). I do this for several reasons, but it started for the same reason I started TRF… I have a history of diabetes in my family and both of these practices have been shown to minimize insulin spikes and resistance. Further research and analysis has also shown evidence supporting an increase in gut health leading to enhancements in nutrient extraction for the food I’m about to eat.

    Additionally, ACV has been shown to support an alkalizing effect on the body. This prevents leaching of calcium from your bones, has been shown to support your immune system and is generally beneficial for many endogenous processes within your body. The morning breathing techniques that I use are also designed to maximize this alkalizing effect.

    After consuming this drink, I’ll eat a handful of algae tablets. Good fiber, high in magnesium (more about this later) and generally starts to make me feel full and helps prevent over eating empty calories during my ‘feeding window’.

    Supplements

    I’ll then wash down my morning supplements with another glass of water. I’m always experimenting with new things based on the data that I’m tracking and areas that I want to improve, but the current required items include (not all at the same time, or consistently every day):

    • multi mushroom blend ~150 mg of each (Currently using Host Defense – Stamets 7 Multi Mushroom Capsules and a custom blend)
    • custom NAD+ boosting capsule
    • 1000 mg fermented chlorella
    • 2500 mg Micronized Creatine Monohydrate
    • 1000 mg Curcumin
    • 3000 IUs Vitamin D3
    • 1.2g of Omega 3s
    • 80 mg Hyaluronic Acid
    • 300 mg Nicotinamide Riboside Chloride
    • 200 mg Tongkat Ali
    • 420 mg Phosphatidyl Choline
    • 1 g Berberine HCl
    • 300 mg Alpha-Lipoic Acid
    • 3 mcg Boron
    • 20 g of Collagen Protein Powder
    • 20 g of other protein (either grass-fed whey, pea, hemp or straight EAAs… I change daily based on my workout/diet plans for the day)

    The main goal here is to increase blood flow, enhance my immune system, reduce inflammation, build/maintain lean muscle and stimulate the production of BDNF.  Shameless self promotion… you can purchase high quality versions of many of these supplements at a discount at BulkSupplements.

    Fat

    The only other daily thing here is adding some high C8 Capryilic Acid Content MCT oil to my meal. This can be mixed into just about anything, and makes a decent salad/sandwich dressing just by itself. This is done again to decrease blood glucose levels and has the nice side affect of increasing blood ketone levels which gives me a mental boost for the afternoon. I’ll go through some of my less pressing emails while eating lunch and prep for making the remainder of the day productive.

    Walk

    Another basic thing that I’ve been doing for a very long time is a ‘lunch time’ walk. This started out mostly as a way to get some movement during the day and to get outside of the office on nice days. These are great reasons, but I’ve evolved this into an informal mindful walking practice. I get outside no matter the weather and walk for at least 20 minutes. I’ve built an infinite labyrinth trail at my house that I walk for this purpose. I focus on the changes that occur to the trail day by day and let my subconscious churn on problems and the upfront items from my GTD list that I’ve recently reviewed. Some of my best ideas arise out of this practice or immediately after… plus I get another 20 minutes of exercise in during the day!

    Time to Learn

    Afternoon is all about learning and idea generation… most of the time I focus on getting more items in my GTD lists to the ‘next action’ state. This might involve investigating alternative approaches, digging into unknowns, but often requires learning something new.

    5 Hour Rule

    I started a basic practice that became my afternoon routine after reading about the 5 hour rule. I’m pretty sure I first heard about this through an interview with Warren Buffett. I did start out struggling to find my 5 hours a week to do this, but with practice and dedication, it eventually became the more like ’25 hour rule’ that it is for me now. This approach to learning, coupled with GTD, has really allowed me to supercharge my productivity over the years.

    During this time, I still pay attention to my activity levels the same way that I do during the morning and follow a similar routine for increasing my activity levels. The number one underlying goal for this time is to…

    Prep for tomorrow

    I never want to wake up questioning what is most important for me to do in the morning. It’s a waste of time when I’m in the best state for working on the real tough problems. This uncertainty often leads to poor sleep since I’ll ruminate on all of the things that I could possibly work on trying to weigh the pros and cons of each.

    Identify ‘Next Actions’

    Because of this, I want to end my work day by figuring this out. I review all the objectives that I have that are high priority items and pick the ‘next action’ tasks that have the highest ROI for at least one personal and one work related item. Barring any emergency that occurs over night, these will be the things that I focus on most in the morning. This eliminates any procrastination-related churn in my mornings and sets me up for a good night’s sleep with a defined set of items for my subconscious to ruminate on.

    Pre-Dinner Prep

    I’ll do a some quick body weight exercises to lower insulin-like growth factor a few minutes before eating dinner. Dinner, like lunch, is balanced from a macro-nutrient perspective, minimizes processed foods, but otherwise anything is game.

    After Dinner

    After eating dinner, I’ll usually take another short walk, but my ritual is much more fluid. This is time for friends and family. Hanging out, conversation and fun. There’s no real focus on working out since I’ve almost always met my goals during the day. I’m not thinking about tomorrow because I’ve already figured out exactly what I’m going to do (and I’m confident that it’s something that I can get done).

    Feeding Window Finish Line

    The only real thing that I do at this point is pay attention to the finish line of my feeding window. As this time approaches, I’ll take another few grams of glycine to drop my body temperature and encourage good sleep. If I feel any indication that good quality sleep may be a problem, (e.g. muscle soreness from working out, anything else weighing on my mind) I’ll take some CBD oil and eat two tablespoons of raw almond butter. This is a magnesium bomb, and done at the right time, increases Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA). GABA is effective at promoting relaxation (i.e. better sleep) and the magnesium also promotes muscle recovery.

    Minimize Blue Light

    Sometimes work bleeds over into the evening.  When that does occur, I want to do everything to minimize any detrimental impact to my sleep quality. I use wellness settings on all of my electronic devices to minimize interruptions, dim brightness and alter color hues after a certain time. If I spend any time in front of a screen, I use blue light blocking glasses. I go to bed when I’m ready to sleep. I do my bedtime breathing exercise and start the whole process again when I wake up.

    Conclusion

    So there it is… the daily ritual post. I’ll update it as things evolve. I’m more than happy to answer any questions about why I do things the way that I do. I held off on going into the many reasons why things have evolved the way that they have to keep this readable.  Believe me, there is a method behind all of my madness.  I’m more than happy to discuss it if you really want to hear it! I could write just as much about why I DON’T do certain things or the experimentation involved in arriving at my conclusions.  If you’re curious about either of those things inquire as well. Most importantly, if you decide to go down this path for yourself, I’d love to talk through your process and share some of the things that I’ve found.