I own a fitbit watch, a Motiv ring, a withings scale, a withings blood pressure cuff, a Thermo thermometer.
ABSTRACT. All of my personal fitness trackers generate low variability data series. When a data series doesn't change day to day, there is no information to react to, at least in the short run. These data series are driven by other low variability series, name my lifestyle (what my various, slow to change habits are). Only the HR monitor has a good deal of daily variability, which is mostly only useful if you are actively training for a race or something.
But when a health tracker catches something, it could be really important. So far, most important catch was that my BP was too high. Not high enough that a doctor cares-- they got patients with BP 180+, so my "yellow zone" BP is not a big deal for them. But for me, this is pre-hypertension, something I will have to pay attention to.
Other people, but not me, have reported getting early warnings from their health data. When a rock steady number suddenly changes, it might be changing before other more dire symptoms occur, giving you time to react. We'll see.
My Withing blood pressure cuff tells me:
I used to be pre-hypertensive a few years ago. Since then I've gone from vegetarian to vegan & I eat three tablespoons of flax a day, which reduces BP by about 10 points.
My Withing's scale tells me:
My BMI is a bit low, but really stable, I'm almost always in a 10lb range, 140-150. Low variability also means, not a lot of information in this data series.
I used it during my last three fasts to make sure I stayed in my normal 10lb range throughout the fast.
The fitbit via steps tells me:
Any day spend entirely indoors or in a car is a sedentary day. It is just about impossible to hit 10,000 steps without going outside.
I learned that steps a day is really something that calls for a daily habit of some sort- at 10PM, you can't use the information that you are only at 7500 steps, it is too late. At 10AM, it is too early to know where you're going with a base of 2500 steps.
If you do any sort of exercise that involves running, you will crush your 10,000 steps a day.
Once your habits are in place, variation in steps per day is fairly low for work days & fairly low for weekends.
The fitbit & Motive tell me via Sleep:
Unless something happens, I somehow end up with about 8 hours of sleep a day.
I have never been able to use the information about "restless minutes", ie the minutes spent rolling over in bed. I never wake up at night, so there isn't a problem to monitor anyhow.
The fibit & Motiv tell me via Heart Rate:
My waking resting heart rate is pretty good.
My sleeping heart rate is really slow.
If it was higher, it would be a sign of bad cardio vascular health.
A rising resting heart rate (over days) can happen if people are exercising intensely and not giving themselves enough time for recovery. I've never seen this.
Heart rate over the day is *very* volatile. There is so much information it is hard to interpret. Generally you can see when you were awake, but sedentary, active but not exercising, exercising, exercising at you hearts maximum rate. So far, I only hit my maximum heart rate running on a treadmill.
My maximum heart rate at the moment is lower than the rule of thumb maximum heart rate. That implies my maximum heart rate is like an older persons'. I don't know if that means anything.
My Thermo tells me:
The kids temperature on a good day is high compared to the adult's temperature.
Each person's normal temperature range is somewhat individual. The Mrs' temperature is lower than the kids, but higher than mine.
Most weeks/months there is too little variation in the data.
ABSTRACT. All of my personal fitness trackers generate low variability data series. When a data series doesn't change day to day, there is no information to react to, at least in the short run. These data series are driven by other low variability series, name my lifestyle (what my various, slow to change habits are). Only the HR monitor has a good deal of daily variability, which is mostly only useful if you are actively training for a race or something.
But when a health tracker catches something, it could be really important. So far, most important catch was that my BP was too high. Not high enough that a doctor cares-- they got patients with BP 180+, so my "yellow zone" BP is not a big deal for them. But for me, this is pre-hypertension, something I will have to pay attention to.
Other people, but not me, have reported getting early warnings from their health data. When a rock steady number suddenly changes, it might be changing before other more dire symptoms occur, giving you time to react. We'll see.
My Withing blood pressure cuff tells me:
I used to be pre-hypertensive a few years ago. Since then I've gone from vegetarian to vegan & I eat three tablespoons of flax a day, which reduces BP by about 10 points.
My Withing's scale tells me:
My BMI is a bit low, but really stable, I'm almost always in a 10lb range, 140-150. Low variability also means, not a lot of information in this data series.
I used it during my last three fasts to make sure I stayed in my normal 10lb range throughout the fast.
Any day spend entirely indoors or in a car is a sedentary day. It is just about impossible to hit 10,000 steps without going outside.
I learned that steps a day is really something that calls for a daily habit of some sort- at 10PM, you can't use the information that you are only at 7500 steps, it is too late. At 10AM, it is too early to know where you're going with a base of 2500 steps.
If you do any sort of exercise that involves running, you will crush your 10,000 steps a day.
Once your habits are in place, variation in steps per day is fairly low for work days & fairly low for weekends.
The fitbit & Motive tell me via Sleep:
Unless something happens, I somehow end up with about 8 hours of sleep a day.
I have never been able to use the information about "restless minutes", ie the minutes spent rolling over in bed. I never wake up at night, so there isn't a problem to monitor anyhow.
The fibit & Motiv tell me via Heart Rate:
My waking resting heart rate is pretty good.
My sleeping heart rate is really slow.
A rising resting heart rate (over days) can happen if people are exercising intensely and not giving themselves enough time for recovery. I've never seen this.
Heart rate over the day is *very* volatile. There is so much information it is hard to interpret. Generally you can see when you were awake, but sedentary, active but not exercising, exercising, exercising at you hearts maximum rate. So far, I only hit my maximum heart rate running on a treadmill.
My maximum heart rate at the moment is lower than the rule of thumb maximum heart rate. That implies my maximum heart rate is like an older persons'. I don't know if that means anything.
My Thermo tells me:
The kids temperature on a good day is high compared to the adult's temperature.
Each person's normal temperature range is somewhat individual. The Mrs' temperature is lower than the kids, but higher than mine.
Most weeks/months there is too little variation in the data.
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