When technology stresses you out

By reporting stress.

Garmin Forerunner 255. Also, my wrist.

Specifically, I wear a Garmin Forerunner 255 running watch. I previously had a Series 5 Apple Watch, and it served me well, but I wanted a tool more attuned to my specific needs as a thrice-weekly runner who occasionally also does long walks and other activities, like treadmill workouts.

The Forerunner has been notably better in several respects:

  • Unlike Apple, Garmin doesn’t hate the web, so I can check all my stats on the web, as well as in an app.
  • The running stats are more detailed, and easier to suss out.
  • On the watch itself, because it has no touch display, it works fine regardless of the weather and starting/stopping/pausing a run is all built around pressing a single button, something easily done regardless of the conditions, or if I’m wearing gloves.
  • The battery life is so good I essentially don’t think about it. I charge when I shower and that’s it.

Because the battery life is so good, I use it for sleep tracking. I’m aware that sleep tracking is a bit dodgy on any smart device and Ray Maker (DC Rainmaker on YouTube) said he thinks they have about 80-85% accuracy, and he uses Garmin watches only to note his start/end times (Duration) for sleep, which it usually does a good job of, then mostly ignores the other things it tracks, namely:

  • Deep
  • Light
  • REM
  • Stress
  • Awake/Restlessness

Each category gets assigned a rating. For example, last night my watch said I slept 7 hours and 46 minutes, which is almost exactly what it recommended, so my Duration was rated Excellent. My Deep sleep lasted 48 minutes, which was enough to rate Fair–and so on.

The possible ratings are:

  • Excellent (90-100%)
  • Good (80-89%)
  • Fair (60-79%)
  • Poor (0-59%)

If you get Fair across the board, you’re looking at an average of around 70%, which is…Fair. But if one category ranks Poor, it can drag down your score either a modest amount, or a lot, depending on the category. One such category is Stress.

Last night, my sleep score was reported thus:

The accompanying text read:

Sleep Score 51/100
Poor Quality

Non-restorative

You slept long enough, but not well enough to bring your stress levels down overnight.

Your very stressful day yesterday may have compromised your sleep. You may feel more tired or irritable today.

Here’s where we get to my point and also that 80-85% accuracy figure Ray Maker notes. As you’ll see, my overall sleep was pretty decent–except for stress. It claims I had a “very stressful day.” My day consisted of chores, sundry tasks and the usual stuff. Nothing particularly stressful–or even stressful at all.

There were texts regarding the strata nonsense in late afternoon, which would be a stress point, but I felt pretty mellow in going through them. A few possible mitigating factors:

  • I am still a bit sore from my spill last week, particularly the hands and right wrist. This may cause some kind of low-level ongoing stress?
  • The bladder infection is only recently dealt with, so my body is still likely recovering from that, not quite back to normal.

Still, the previous night reported average (Fair) stress, so there’s no reason to think the above two items would affect my stress score while sleeping. Yet I do not feel the day was stressful. I woke up this morning feeling I had clearly slept better than the previous night–but with a lower score.

And I think of that 80-85% and wonder if my watch is now just kind of freaking out and interpreting everything as STRESS and reflecting it in my stats. The thing is, seeing it always reporting stress is genuinely stressful in itself, especially when I don’t feel I’m being stressed. It’s all very recursive.

I ponder whether to take the watch off at night. I’ll probably leave it on for now, but I will adjust to take the sleep scores with a bigger grain of salt, and adjust upward to giant grain as necessary.

Typing out this post probably affected my stress level, per the Forerunner.

Post-splat report: One week later

I am healing up!

The abrasion on my left elbow is nearly gone, the scrape on my right knee looks more like a playground boo-boo, and my hands have gone from covered in gauze and tape to regular bandages. The left hand will likely go bandage-free in the next day, with the right to follow not long after.

The left upper thigh has gone from feeling like it was punched by an angry gorilla (repeatedly) to just a bit sore.

The right wrist is still the worst off. While it is much better, there is still a bit of pain when I move it in certain ways, or more specifically, when I am holding something and move it in specific ways. The argument against the bones being sprained/broken are:

  • I don’t hear any ominous crunching when turning the wrist in any direction
  • In general there is no pain at all, unless I do a very specific action (eg. holding something in my hand in a particular manner)
  • Any pain is actually pretty low level
  • It definitely feels a lot better than it did a week ago, and broken bones do not magically heal themselves (to my knowledge)

I still reserve the right to get an X-ray, but I think the wrist is OK. Probably. Mostly, I know that if I go to the ER to have it checked out, I will be there for long, agonizing hours and that actually seems slightly worse than a bone fracture.

Anyway, I am generally on the mend and feeling much better with a week of recovery behind me, and no more (hopefully) bladder infection. December was a hell month. I am hoping January will at most be a heck month.

My hands, one week later (spoilers again, but they don’t look bad at all):

Hands, less bloody
Lefty
Righty

December 2024 weight loss report: Down 2.2 pounds

The best news is I’m down for the month and also down for the year. Hooray!

The not-as-good news is I was close to being down a decent bit more, as three times during the month I hit 165.2 or 165.3 pounds, including just a few days ago. In these past few days, despite no drastic changes in eating, my body weight suddenly started swinging wildly up and down. But even though I gained 0.6 pounds this morning, it couldn’t erase the rest of the month’s weight loss, meaning I am still down 2.2 pounds for the month and 5.7 pounds for the year.

These are pretty small numbers and I remain, as of today, some 16+ pounds short of my goal, but at least I am moving in the right direction.

December complications:

  • In the first week, I developed a bacteria infection, which kept me from running for four weeks. This is probably why I suffered the slight shrinkage of muscle mass. It did lead to a massive 3.1 pound overnight weight loss in that first week, and by the end of the month, I’d kept about two-thirds of it off, which is pretty good!
  • That second run–yesterday–resulted in me tripping and hitting the sidewalk hard, so I’m unsure how soon I’ll be running again. We’ll see.
  • The general lack of activity, associated stress, and discomfort did subdue my appetite for large periods, but once it improved, I came close to using food as comfort again. Bad!

In terms of stats, for the month, they have mostly improved. For the entire year of 2024:

  • Body fat went from 25.2% to 25.3% (neutral)
  • Muscle mass went from 30.5% to 29.7% (bad)
  • BMI went from 24.7 to 23.8 (good)

A mixed bag.

2024 was a mixed bag, indeed. Here’s to 2025 being a nice lean bag.

Stats:

January 1, 2024: 172.3 pounds

Current: 166.6 pounds
Year to date: Down 5.7 pounds

December 1: 168.8 pounds
December 31: 166.6 pounds (down 2.2 pounds)

Body fat:
December 1: 25.9%
December 31: 25.3% (down 0.6%)

Skeletal muscle mass:
December 1: 30.0%
December 31: 29.7% (down 0.3%)

BMI:
December 1: 24.2
December 31: 23.8 (down 0.4%)

Historical: January 1, 2022: 182.8 pounds

The (unplanned) culling: 212 days of 10,000+ steps

Last night the antibiotics I have been taking for two weeks just plain stopped working and the infection they’d been holding at bay came roaring back, with attendant fever, body aches and other fun stuff.

I also began taking new (and better-targeted) antibiotics late yesterday, but when I went to bed, I was blazing hot and had yet another terrible night of sleep, as I have had for most of December. I do not recommend this.

On my Garmin Forerunner 255 I have a 212-day streak for walking at least 10,000 steps per day. That’s about seven months, which is pretty good.

This morning, I got up, had breakfast, then went back to bed. I stayed in bed until about 2 p.m. and slept fitfully, as I still had a residual headache. Fortunately, the new antibiotics had begun working by morning and the fever, chills, etc. had passed. I was still very tired and with only 3,000 steps as of 9 p.m. faced a question: Did I want to walk on the treadmill long enough to get 7,000 more steps? It would probably take close to an hour.

I decided it was better to just accept the streak was over, and my immediate health and well-being was more important. It still kind of bugs me that the streak is ending, but sometimes you just have to accept that the best choice is not always the one you want to make.

Although I wasn’t exactly keen on getting on the treadmill for an hour, either. I believe I mentioned I am very tired.

And this concludes Christmas Eve 2024. Enjoy this pixelated snow scene. It’s the best kind of snow–make-believe!

11 days

It turns out it takes 11 days for me to overcome my fear of getting a blood test after the last test did…not go well1Think human pincushion (tracking from when my doctor gave me the sheet listing the blood work to me actually going into the lab to get the blood taken).

The good news is this time (today) was perfectly normal as far as that sort of thing goes. Here’s hoping the results aren’t completely horrible, though the way the year has gone, I am…keeping my guard up.

Also, the happiest blood I could find:

If you wish to have your own happy blood, I got the image here: https://vectorstock.com/13564473

On artists suffering for their art

I’m pretty confident that the person who came up with the expression never fully understood the subtle interplay between the pain and discomfort of, say, a prostate infection, and the creation of art. In my sample1ew of one, suffering does not lead to art, it leads to wanting the suffering to stop. I could draw a big happy face right now, then splatter it with Jackson Pollock-style blobs of colour, and it would not make my prostate infection go away.

If it could make my prostate infection go away, I’d be up to my pits in art as I typed this. I’d be typing from on top of my giant pile of art.

Instead, I’ve been taking antibiotics and resting. Neither of these produces art, but they ease my suffering.

When the suffering ends, I will draw a Gum Gum Person.

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed right up in my freaking grill. Stupid yesterday.

Although it feels like hundreds of years, it was probably a couple of weeks ago I noticed mild discomfort on one side of my abdomen. I’ve felt this before and it’s turned out to be that “men of a certain age” thing known as a prostate infection. After I got the first one in 2008, the doctor at the medical clinic reassured me there would be more to come.

He was correct. He’s probably old enough to be getting them himself now.

I ignored it for a few days, because it was very mild and I wasn’t sure if it was just my body being weird or whatever. This was dumb. I then made a doctor appointment and went in last Wednesday. The doctor poked my abdomen. It was unpleasant. He agreed it might be an infection and gave me some blood work to get done at a local lab.

This reminded me that the last two times I went to a local lab to get blood taken (the area is filled with them, since I live next to a hospital), the person conducting the procedure was apparently green and had difficulty finding a vein. In the second instance, the person (different each time) actually left the needle in my arm while seeking help from more experienced staff. This is like stabbing someone and leaving the knife in. I can’t properly describe how extremely unpleasant it felt.

Anyway, I delayed on getting the blood work done for a day because I got up and had breakfast. My doctor later told me I didn’t need to fast for these tests. Oops.

We now move to Friday of last week. I still need to get the blood work done, and I vow I’ll do it, very soon! Probably. I go for a walk on the river trail. On the way back, my entire body starts to ache.

I later develop a huge pressure headache, a fever, and that slight pain in the abdomen increases.

The weekend is a fugue of pain and delirium. Come Monday–yesterday–the pain in the abdomen, which I’d mostly only noticed if I was laying down, is now ever-present regardless of position, and much, much worse. I feel like there is nothing I can do to help make myself feel more comfortable. I want to leave my body, for a little while, and hop back in when it’s better.

My doctor agrees to prescribe antibiotics, even before the test results. By mid-evening, having taken the first pill, I am at least experiencing a placebo effect of feeling very slightly better, though the pain is still there. I am also very, very tired.

Today, the good news is my sleep score, which fell to a low of 31 when I felt hot enough (not in a sexy way) to set the bed on fire, rose to a mediocre, but much better 69. I feel a little more human. I am hoping I’m not allergic to the antibiotics, but if they work, I may still accept the trade-off.

Kids, the lesson here is: When you feel that weird little pain, get it checked right away. Don’t be macho and dumb and negligent like me! I can only imagine how much worse it would have gotten if the medication had come even just a few days later.

Anyway, that was yesterday. And I never liked the song much, either, so there.

Also, I already had a tag for INFECTIONS, which shows you how often this has happened.

November 2024 weight loss report: Up 1.8 pounds

Yep! One word: Bacon.

November was a stressful month, and I dealt with the stress mostly by shoving food into my mouth:

  • Cookies
  • Crackers
  • Bagels
  • Ice cream bars
  • Bacon
  • More bacon
  • But no donuts!

December is not exactly known as a slimming month, but I’ll give it a shot.

Three bright spots:

  • I am still down for the year overall (by a very modest amount, but still)
  • My running and exercise has resulted in a slight increase in muscle mass
  • Body fat actually didn’t increase

Stats:

January 1, 2024: 172.3 pounds

Current: 168.7 pounds
Year to date: Down 3.6 pounds (previously down 6.3 pounds)

November 1: 166.9 pounds
November 30: 168.7 pounds (up 1.8 pounds)

Body fat:
November 1: 25.1%
November 30: 25.1% (unchanged)

Skeletal muscle mass:
November 1: 29.8%
November 30: 30.0% (up 0.2%)

BMI:
November 1: 23.9
November 30: 24.1 (up 0.2%)

Historical: January 1, 2022: 182.8 pounds

4321 days (on MyFitnessPal)

I have yet to find a way to log my food on a daily basis that works better for me than MyFitnessPal. Even as the site strips away features or puts more of them behind paywalls, it’s still so easy for me to add food that I never do much to look elsewhere at other apps. It’s a classic sunk cost sort of thing. Plus, it always tells me how slim I’ll be in five weeks (MFP is a chronic liar in that regard).

Anyway, this is my commemoration for using MFP for4321 consecutive days (and counting).

That works out to 11.83835616438356 years. That’s a pretty good streak, as streaks go.

October 2024 weight loss report: Down* 0.2 pounds

The asterisk is important. More below.

When you lose only 0.2 pounds, it’s kind of technical weight loss. This month, it’s technical weight loss in two ways:

  • It happened on the last day of the month–today! In fact, I started at exactly where I was on the 1st, at 166.8 pounds, then weighed myself after a trip to the loo, and dropped to the devilish weight of 166.6 pounds.
  • I started the month up from the previous month. I ended September at 166.0 pounds, then jumped to 166.8 on October 1st, so since September 1st, I’ve actually gained 0.6 pounds.

Fun Facts this month:

  • Food was a source of comfort in two ways this month, helping to explain the minimal loss. I sought refuge in food for stress relief, and also while sick (feed a fever or whatever you might have, who cares if you even have a fever?). This meant my weight loss strategy was largely abandoned for long stretches of October.
  • I got sick early in the month. This was both a curse (I didn’t run and could not count on the extra calories being burned) and a blessing (the night after I got sick, I dropped a whopping 2.5 pounds. I gained back 2.3 pounds of it).

Given the circumstances, it could have been worse.

I make no guesses for November, but barring a second bout of being sick, or unexpected stress or just more stress, I should…drop a little more? We’ll see!

As of today, I am down 5.7 pounds for the year, which averages out to 1.7543859649 pounds per month. I deliberately avoided rounding the number to make it look bigger.

Stats:

January 1, 2024: 172.3 pounds  
Current: 166.6 pounds
Year to date: Down 5.7 pounds (previously down 6.3 pounds)

October 1: 166.8 pounds
October 31: 166.6 pounds (down 0.2 pounds)

Body fat:
October 1: 25.0%
October 31: 25.0% (unchanged)

Skeletal muscle mass:
October 1: 29.8%
October 31: 29.7% (down 0.1%)

BMI:
October 1: 23.9
October 31: 23.8 (down 0.1%)

Historical: January 1, 2022: 182.8 pounds