7 ms·

Beautiful website indeed; there are a lot of carefully crafted details, especially for navigation. I genuinely wonder though what to do of it. I can't seem to

Beautiful website indeed; there are a lot of carefully crafted details, especially for navigation. I genuinely wonder though what to do of it. I can't seem to see what people do with all this data; what does one get from knowing how many steps, run, calories, subway stops and hours of sleep were accounted for in a day, every day. I can see how one could be rigorous enough with his training to see value in some of it, similarly I would see myself trying to improve my sleep patterns. But really, so far, people I've met use this as yet another distraction. I have yet to meet anybody who has been leveraging the data they collect; most (all?) people I know eat healthy, exercise and sleep well do so without relying on devices. Now, once we're able to track real health related data continuously, we may be able to detect illness or problems as soon as they arise and effectively create a feedback lookp. But from where I stand, as of today, these things are just gimmicks.

k-mcgrady 12y ago
I'll give you one small example. I started using a sleep tracking app on my iPhone because I have bad onset insomnia and don't sleep well. After one weeks use I noticed that the nights I went for a short 20 min walk before bed I had a much better sleep score. I also fell asleep faster. Another thing I noticed was that I feel asleep faster if I didn't listen to music or podcasts. I've listened to them for years thinking it helped me fall asleep more quickly but using the app for a week I was able to prove that false. Obviously my data set it very small but the changes seem to be working. If you collect data on lots of different things all of these small changes/improvements you make could add up to a noticeable difference in quality of life. The holy grail of course is software that can analyse all of these data points and recommend changes.
- alanthonyc 12y ago
  Which app do you use, may I ask?
  - k-mcgrady 12y ago
    'Sleep Cycle'. Orange icon with a clock on it. I was always quite skeptical of it and didn't download it until recently. It's been one of the top apps for a few years and has good reviews. I've found it to be quite accurate. It recommends that you keep your iPhone connected to a charger and under your sheet as you sleep but I've found just placing the device next to my pillow works fine and only uses about 25-30% battery life per night.
- hunvreus 12y ago
  IMHO, you don't need personalized data for this kind of stuff. More seriously, there's plenty of literature out there about these things; spend 5 minutes on Google and you'll find all of these recommendations. You'll know that exercising will help you sleep. You'll read as well that screens tend to disturb our sleeping patterns. These are becoming common sense and shouldn't require you to run you own little experiment to figure it out. If you want to improve the quality of your life, I doubt a fitbit will help you. You already know what you should be doing starting with the obvious ones: - Exercise more, - Eat more healthy (less carbs/sugar/processed food, more vegetables and regular meat/fish/eggs...), - Sleep more, - Drink less.
  - ska 12y ago
    In my opinion you are missing two very key points. 1) Saying "well, you could just find this information some other way" may be true but useless - everyone has different mechanisms that work well for them. If it takes a device or app or whatever for someone to stick with a change they want to make, then good for them. 2) While there is definitely some general health and fitness advice that would benefit most people, it's terribly naive to believe the story ends there. Population averages are just that, every person will also have specific mechanisms and effects that are important to their own wellbeing and not particularly generalizable.
    - hunvreus 12y ago
      Fair enough. That being said: 1. It matters to me because I see this as a waste of resources (hardware, software, brains) for something that is near obvious. While it's anyone's choice to consume the way they want, I am just morally opposed to it. 2. What these apps address are general health/fitness metrics, in a very superficial manner. As I said, once we have more meaningful tracking I'll be onboard, for now these are rudimentary toys.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
  - k-mcgrady 12y ago
vidyesh 12y ago
You are right. From what I see apart from use for sports professionals or people for whom physical health matters too much ( livelihood ) they would make use of it the most. But still gathering al this data religiously is good ( I haven't yet ) as sooner or later somebody will figure out how to use the data so well that it could ( algorithm / AI ) could determine what you should do today to reach a certain goal to stay healthy which you messed up a day before? For example, people who work out a lot and live on a diet, might some day indulge in something without really wanting to and all this data could tell how much ( theoretically ) will affect your health so what you should do today to make up for yesterday (?). Think about this on much broader aspect, too much of something eventually is bad. Nobody is going to tell you forever to stop something until you stop, apps like this could gather data and at the end of a week/month/quarter could tell you your score and could rather calculate the risk of xxxx disease/illness which could happen because of your bad eating habits. All this data could be synced with your medical file/with your doctor in order to keep tabs on your health and push personalised notifications of what and what not to do or just be cautious/warning. I don't know if such thing really already exists or possible or even good but all this data could be tapped in and used much better way. Oh and no clue why all this data should be social or public. IMO, it should be private and shared within family/concerned people.
- Retric 12y ago
  In order to correlate with heath issues your going to need a standard to work from. Which makes collecting most of this info before 'fit-bit 12.0' or whatever somewhat pointless. What exercise data can tell you is if your gaining or losing ground. So, if you do 10k in the same time but your heart rate is higher or lower that means something. But it's not going to correlate with a say a 1% increase of diabetes because we just don't run studies with that much detail yet.
  - vidyesh 12y ago
    The site seems to be showing that it has gathered a lot more than just eating and burning calories, safe to say such intensive data can be used to correlate with certain standard illnesses to be cautious. Your data over a period of few months might make more sense to understand what ill-effects certain things have had on you. Think about 1 year's worth of your data being analysed to tell what certain things have had certain health related changes in you. Of course it still would take time to know how the changes you make will change things in you but based on your past data it could predict perhaps?
hluska 12y ago
I have enjoyed lifting weights for years, but in October 2013, I took the plunge, bought a bench, some bars and some plates, and started seriously lifting. When I started seriously lifting, I collected some bench marks. I collected my one rep max, six rep max and ten rep max in four different exercises. Then, I collected data on my pulse rate after doing a ten rep set in various exercises. When I work out, I collect what exercises I performed, how many sets/reps, and what kinds of weight I lifted. And, I intended to check my benchmarks once a month, but in practice it has worked out to be closer to every six weeks. Roughly nine months later and collecting that data has proven very beneficial. For example, with strength training it is too easy to get into a routine and then keep banging out that same routine every day. I always know what I did the last time I worked a muscle group, so I feel intense pressure from myself to either move a few more pounds, bang out another set, or add a few more reps to a set. And, I get to track how various lifestyle changes interact with strengh training. For example, in December, I broke my right thumb cross country skiing and had to take some time off lifting. Weirdly, the time off actually increased my bench and shoulder presses because I was using my left (non-dominant) side significantly more often. Balancing my right and left sides made me significantly stronger. Or, in May, the snow was gone so I started jogging again. Jogging improved some aspects of my lifting - for example, my heart rate after a set has dropped since I added in jogging. But, it has also hurt other aspects - for example, my gains in strength are actually slowing. Incidentally, monitoring my jogging showed me that my tendency to settle into a routine carries across into other forms of exercise. I realized that I was running the same route every single time in roughly the exact same amount of time. My body got used to a level of effort and then stopped getting better. Just because the 'people you have met' use this as a distraction does not mean that everyone will. And, just because all the people you know eat well and exercise regularly, it doesn't mean that everyone does. Some people find that the simple act of tracking their performance keeps them motivated to continuously improve. Others have goals beyond 'be healthy' and need to monitor their progress if they have any hope of reaching their goals.
- tertia 12y ago
  I would be neat to see your pre and post workout blood-pressure stats too, and how that has changed over time. I can personally tell that when I squat or deadlift near my max that my BP peaks. I'd like to know how quickly it falls off after, etc. I'm also curious to know if heavy-lifting has positive effects on circulatory system elasticity.

k-mcgrady 12y ago

I'll give you one small example. I started using a sleep tracking app on my iPhone because I have bad onset insomnia and don't sleep well. After one weeks use I noticed that the nights I went for a short 20 min walk before bed I had a much better sleep score. I also fell asleep faster. Another thing I noticed was that I feel asleep faster if I didn't listen to music or podcasts. I've listened to them for years thinking it helped me fall asleep more quickly but using the app for a week I was able to prove that false. Obviously my data set it very small but the changes seem to be working. If you collect data on lots of different things all of these small changes/improvements you make could add up to a noticeable difference in quality of life. The holy grail of course is software that can analyse all of these data points and recommend changes.

alanthonyc 12y ago
Which app do you use, may I ask?
- k-mcgrady 12y ago
  'Sleep Cycle'. Orange icon with a clock on it. I was always quite skeptical of it and didn't download it until recently. It's been one of the top apps for a few years and has good reviews. I've found it to be quite accurate. It recommends that you keep your iPhone connected to a charger and under your sheet as you sleep but I've found just placing the device next to my pillow works fine and only uses about 25-30% battery life per night.
hunvreus 12y ago
IMHO, you don't need personalized data for this kind of stuff. More seriously, there's plenty of literature out there about these things; spend 5 minutes on Google and you'll find all of these recommendations. You'll know that exercising will help you sleep. You'll read as well that screens tend to disturb our sleeping patterns. These are becoming common sense and shouldn't require you to run you own little experiment to figure it out. If you want to improve the quality of your life, I doubt a fitbit will help you. You already know what you should be doing starting with the obvious ones: - Exercise more, - Eat more healthy (less carbs/sugar/processed food, more vegetables and regular meat/fish/eggs...), - Sleep more, - Drink less.
- ska 12y ago
  In my opinion you are missing two very key points. 1) Saying "well, you could just find this information some other way" may be true but useless - everyone has different mechanisms that work well for them. If it takes a device or app or whatever for someone to stick with a change they want to make, then good for them. 2) While there is definitely some general health and fitness advice that would benefit most people, it's terribly naive to believe the story ends there. Population averages are just that, every person will also have specific mechanisms and effects that are important to their own wellbeing and not particularly generalizable.
  - hunvreus 12y ago
    Fair enough. That being said: 1. It matters to me because I see this as a waste of resources (hardware, software, brains) for something that is near obvious. While it's anyone's choice to consume the way they want, I am just morally opposed to it. 2. What these apps address are general health/fitness metrics, in a very superficial manner. As I said, once we have more meaningful tracking I'll be onboard, for now these are rudimentary toys.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
- k-mcgrady 12y ago

vidyesh 12y ago

You are right. From what I see apart from use for sports professionals or people for whom physical health matters too much ( livelihood ) they would make use of it the most. But still gathering al this data religiously is good ( I haven't yet ) as sooner or later somebody will figure out how to use the data so well that it could ( algorithm / AI ) could determine what you should do today to reach a certain goal to stay healthy which you messed up a day before? For example, people who work out a lot and live on a diet, might some day indulge in something without really wanting to and all this data could tell how much ( theoretically ) will affect your health so what you should do today to make up for yesterday (?). Think about this on much broader aspect, too much of something eventually is bad. Nobody is going to tell you forever to stop something until you stop, apps like this could gather data and at the end of a week/month/quarter could tell you your score and could rather calculate the risk of xxxx disease/illness which could happen because of your bad eating habits. All this data could be synced with your medical file/with your doctor in order to keep tabs on your health and push personalised notifications of what and what not to do or just be cautious/warning. I don't know if such thing really already exists or possible or even good but all this data could be tapped in and used much better way. Oh and no clue why all this data should be social or public. IMO, it should be private and shared within family/concerned people.

Retric 12y ago
In order to correlate with heath issues your going to need a standard to work from. Which makes collecting most of this info before 'fit-bit 12.0' or whatever somewhat pointless. What exercise data can tell you is if your gaining or losing ground. So, if you do 10k in the same time but your heart rate is higher or lower that means something. But it's not going to correlate with a say a 1% increase of diabetes because we just don't run studies with that much detail yet.
- vidyesh 12y ago
  The site seems to be showing that it has gathered a lot more than just eating and burning calories, safe to say such intensive data can be used to correlate with certain standard illnesses to be cautious. Your data over a period of few months might make more sense to understand what ill-effects certain things have had on you. Think about 1 year's worth of your data being analysed to tell what certain things have had certain health related changes in you. Of course it still would take time to know how the changes you make will change things in you but based on your past data it could predict perhaps?

hluska 12y ago

I have enjoyed lifting weights for years, but in October 2013, I took the plunge, bought a bench, some bars and some plates, and started seriously lifting. When I started seriously lifting, I collected some bench marks. I collected my one rep max, six rep max and ten rep max in four different exercises. Then, I collected data on my pulse rate after doing a ten rep set in various exercises. When I work out, I collect what exercises I performed, how many sets/reps, and what kinds of weight I lifted. And, I intended to check my benchmarks once a month, but in practice it has worked out to be closer to every six weeks. Roughly nine months later and collecting that data has proven very beneficial. For example, with strength training it is too easy to get into a routine and then keep banging out that same routine every day. I always know what I did the last time I worked a muscle group, so I feel intense pressure from myself to either move a few more pounds, bang out another set, or add a few more reps to a set. And, I get to track how various lifestyle changes interact with strengh training. For example, in December, I broke my right thumb cross country skiing and had to take some time off lifting. Weirdly, the time off actually increased my bench and shoulder presses because I was using my left (non-dominant) side significantly more often. Balancing my right and left sides made me significantly stronger. Or, in May, the snow was gone so I started jogging again. Jogging improved some aspects of my lifting - for example, my heart rate after a set has dropped since I added in jogging. But, it has also hurt other aspects - for example, my gains in strength are actually slowing. Incidentally, monitoring my jogging showed me that my tendency to settle into a routine carries across into other forms of exercise. I realized that I was running the same route every single time in roughly the exact same amount of time. My body got used to a level of effort and then stopped getting better. Just because the 'people you have met' use this as a distraction does not mean that everyone will. And, just because all the people you know eat well and exercise regularly, it doesn't mean that everyone does. Some people find that the simple act of tracking their performance keeps them motivated to continuously improve. Others have goals beyond 'be healthy' and need to monitor their progress if they have any hope of reaching their goals.

tertia 12y ago
I would be neat to see your pre and post workout blood-pressure stats too, and how that has changed over time. I can personally tell that when I squat or deadlift near my max that my BP peaks. I'd like to know how quickly it falls off after, etc. I'm also curious to know if heavy-lifting has positive effects on circulatory system elasticity.