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I've been tracking everything about myself

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Re: I've been tracking everything about myself

#141

Post by xiaoma »

tertia wrote: post #138
xiaoma wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't make much sense. As a competitive runner in school, I was under a 5% body fat percentage without really lifting. Now I do lift and I'm at about a 23% body fat percentage (and nearly 3x the arm strength I once had). Runners tend to have a significant lower body fat percentage than lifters, even at a professional level. More likely is that the OP just isn't doing enough. Running 25 miles a week is enough t…

you were probably under-eating as a runner.

Lolwut? Not sure where you came up with that. Actually, I was eating more then than now and was doing well.

Re: I've been tracking everything about myself

#142

Post by xiaoma »

hluska wrote: post #97
hunvreus wrote: post #33

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,…

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…

>"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."

This is the trifecta of slow—consistently low mileage, no hills and running at the same speed every workout.

Re: I've been tracking everything about myself

#143

Post by xiaoma »

tertia wrote: post #137
xiaoma wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. I don't find this terribly convincing. Running is well documented in its role in improving bone density: http://healthfully.org/highinterestmedical/id33.html Unlike weight-lifting there are actual studies showing running promoting neurogenesis (the increase of brain cells) and improving performance: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e... Finally, muscle mass is far from enough to be an e…

"Finally, muscle mass is far from enough to be an effective metabolic regulator. While I have yet to meet anyone who runs 100 miles a week and is overweight, it's not uncommon to find that someone who benches 500lbs still carries a gut. I myself have gained a great deal of both fat and muscle since my school years when I was a runner." 1. Take an equal amount of fat vs muscle: which will burn more calories? Muscle, o…

Of course, muscle requires more food to maintain than fat does. I think you missed the point.

What I was saying was that merely building muscle doesn't do much in terms of cutting down body fat. Muscle burns calories, but people with more muscle also tend to eat more calories. This is even true of people who have extraordinary quantities of muscle.

Cardio, on the other hand, only works that way up to a point. People who do a bit of running also tend to compensate by eating more. However, after a certain level of volume, cardio starts to suppress the appetite to about what's needed to maintain the workload. This is probably why I've never seen anyone, including myself, manage to keep the weight on after getting over about 70 miles/week (about the level of an ambitious high school cross-country runner).

Re: I've been tracking everything about myself

#144

Post by thallukrish »

If Anand had not done this whole thing artistically, there is no way it would have elicited interest. What if every one on the planet did this?. Then this whole thing becomes terribly boring and meaningless no matter how it looks. I am pretty sure many got attracted by the design rather than the content itself!

Re: I've been tracking everything about myself

#145

Post by LocalPCGuy »

Excavator wrote: post #89
Nemcue wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an "about this site" link at the bottom, where he lists some of the third party services used. In general he has a few global objects which seem to contain everything for each section; ajax requests, animations (which are webkit only as far as I can tell) etc. Most of it is done via jQuery.

> animations (which are webkit only as far as I can tell) So that's why people were calling it pretty. It does actually look good with all that prefix nonsense fixed. Seems odd to use prefixes for things that were unprefixed 2years ago in Firefox. https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/07/aurora-16-is-out/

One of my pet peeves is when people are so "in" the webkit world they don't bother to even list the unprefixed version. I too looked at it in Firefox, and things actually look a bit broken. My guess is adding the unprefixed version would probably fix the majority of the errors I see.

I won't go so far as to say stop using prefixes, but ALWAYS include the unprefixed version last in the CSS stack. It's so easy with Sass also.

Re: I've been tracking everything about myself

#146

Post by fasteo »

xiaoma wrote: post #136
fasteo wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are implying something that I didn´t mean. This is not about weight lifting vs running. Anand is already running and I suggested him to add some weight training to gain some lean mass, as his BF level (19%) is a little high, possibly due to the lack of muscle mass. For the record, I run - or bike - at least twice per week.

That doesn't make much sense. As a competitive runner in school, I was under a 5% body fat percentage without really lifting. Now I do lift and I'm at about a 23% body fat percentage (and nearly 3x the arm strength I once had). Runners tend to have a significant lower body fat percentage than lifters, even at a professional level. More likely is that the OP just isn't doing enough. Running 25 miles a week is enough t…

Uhmm, looking at all the comments to my initial comment, I think this has gone offtrack:

- I am not against running, but I consider weight lifting a necessary addition to it.

- I am not talking about lowering body fat or aesthetics. I am talking about health. A lower body fat is healthier up to a point. Single digit body fat level is just an unhealthy as a 30% body fat level.

- In the same sense, this is not about how much calories muscles burn as this is irrelevant to health. My point is about the role muscle has in maintaining homeostasis in our metabolism.

- My point is/was to help Anand: My sweet spot for body fat level is 13-14%. This is where I feel and perform the best. Anand is at 19% and I believe it is because lack of lean mass; that´s why I recommended him some weight lifting.

Re: I've been tracking everything about myself

#147

Post by spaboleo »

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #65
hunvreus wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 experimen…

I have got enormous value from tracking my resting heart rate and body temperature. Anything under 75 bpm or under 98F and I know I need to eat and sleep more and skip exercise. No need to log. I think a ton of folks would benefit. Beyond those two metrics I can't think of anything it'd be useful to check regularly. Reflex time or achilles reflex test might be good.

Uhm? Why do you consider a resting heart rate of under 75bpm to be a bad condition?

I'm just assuming that you are within the average age group of hacker news readers (somewhere between 20 and 40 years) it's not really recommended for you to be above 75bpm.

Re: I've been tracking everything about myself

#148

Post by a8da6b0c91d »

spaboleo wrote: post #147
a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have got enormous value from tracking my resting heart rate and body temperature. Anything under 75 bpm or under 98F and I know I need to eat and sleep more and skip exercise. No need to log. I think a ton of folks would benefit. Beyond those two metrics I can't think of anything it'd be useful to check regularly. Reflex time or achilles reflex test might be good.

Uhm? Why do you consider a resting heart rate of under 75bpm to be a bad condition? I'm just assuming that you are within the average age group of hacker news readers (somewhere between 20 and 40 years) it's not really recommended for you to be above 75bpm.

Hypothyroidism. Anything much below 70 is indicative of suppressed metabolism. Up towards 90 is actually best. There are clear correlations between health, intelligence, and resting heart rate. The most intelligent people have resting heart rates up around 95 bpm.

The idea that a lower pulse rate is better comes from the observation that endurance athletes have low resting pulse rates, and it is generally assumed that endurance exercise is healthy. The truth is that high volume exercise suppresses the metabolism and compromises health.

Re: I've been tracking everything about myself

#149

Post by [deleted] »

hunvreus wrote: post #54
ska wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

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…

[deleted]

Re: I've been tracking everything about myself

#150

Post by dsjoerg »

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #148
spaboleo wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhm? Why do you consider a resting heart rate of under 75bpm to be a bad condition? I'm just assuming that you are within the average age group of hacker news readers (somewhere between 20 and 40 years) it's not really recommended for you to be above 75bpm.

Hypothyroidism. Anything much below 70 is indicative of suppressed metabolism. Up towards 90 is actually best. There are clear correlations between health, intelligence, and resting heart rate. The most intelligent people have resting heart rates up around 95 bpm. The idea that a lower pulse rate is better comes from the observation that endurance athletes have low resting pulse rates, and it is generally assumed tha…

Can you offer a reference for this claim?

Here's a counter-claim: "A normal resting heart rate for adults ranges from 60 to 100 beats a minute.

Generally, a lower heart rate at rest implies more efficient heart function and better cardiovascular fitness. For example, a well-trained athlete might have a normal resting heart rate closer to 40 beats a minute."

Source: Mayo Clinic, http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/fitness/expert-answ...

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