Weekly Health Statistics: 7/11 – 7/17/21

For those checking the dates, I post these with a 1-week lag.

Summary:

What I’m tracking

Sleep:
- Metrics: total time, heart rate variability, pulse (sleeping vs. waking)
- Method: Apple watch + Autosleep app
- Frequency: daily
Blood glucose:
- Metrics: fasting BG, Avg. BG, coefficient of variation, time 70-140 mg/dL, time <60 mg/dL
- Method: Dexcom G6 CGM
- Frequency: continuous
Body:
- Metrics: weight, waist circumference, BMI, waist/height
- Method: scale + Renpho tape measure
- Frequency: weekly
Other blood:
- Metrics: hemoglobin, cholesterol, blood pressure, pulse
- Method: Hemocue 801, Cardiocheck PA, Omron 10
- Frequency: weekly for blood pressure & pulse, every 2 weeks for hemoglobin & cholesterol

Observations

Sleep:
- This was the first week of my sleep experiment, so in addition to the metrics automatically tracked by my watch, I’m noting down any time I wake up in the middle of the night.
- Despite the fact that all the auto-tracked metrics looked good, I was waking up much more frequently in the middle of the night and feeling more tired. This suggests the auto-tracked metrics are not a great measure of overall sleep quality.
- I need to do a more detailed analysis to figure out what’s going on here…
Blood glucose:
- All stats back to normal after last week’s travel.
- Time 70-140 mg/dL still could be a bit better. Will continue to cut back on insulin at meals.
Body:
- Still seeing steady drop in weight and waistline. I’m very happy with my progress here.
Blood:
- Switching to every other week measurement for cholesterol and hemoglobin to reduce tracking burden. Will increase frequency if I’m doing any experiments that might cause them to change.
- Blood pressure was much higher than normal this week. I ate an unusual dinner last night and had higher than normal BG, so might just be an outlier. Will keep an eye on this and see if it persists.

Active & Planned Experiments

Comprehensive bloodwork:
- Goal: Establish baseline for a broad range of biomarkers and check overall health
- Approach: WellnessFX Premium panel
- Status: Got the results, need to analyze and write up.
Testing methods of sleeping longer:
- Goals:
  - To determine if taking melatonin supplements in the evening extends the duration of my time asleep and subjective fatigue given a consistent bedtime.
  - To determine if taking melatonin supplement and/or sleeping longer affects subjective fatigue, blood glucose, heart rate variability, or pulse
- Approach: here
- Status: Week 1 complete

Data:

Blood