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Still Alive, No Cake
Aug. 16th, 2022 09:39 amI'm feeling marginally better today after spending a miserable night unable to breathe. I developed nasal congestion of the sort that won't let you inhale, but you also can't deal with by blowing your nose because everything is just blocked. I finally did get some sleep and probably rested better than Fox, who is now sick again. I have no idea what's going on around here anymore.
The symptoms have mostly gone from whole-body to above the neck now. My cough is productive, but there's not much coming up. My breathing doesn't feel bad at all, though my throat's a little raw. I have a mild headache and some fatigue, and I'm still sweating like a beast. And that's an odd phrase because animals don't sweat.
Anyway, I credit my recovery to Dr. Crowley who provided consistent cat therapy by lying on my chest whenever possible, sometimes with his ass in my face.
We've been Garmin users for a while now, migrating from Fitbit because we wanted more fitness related data and Garmin seemed highly regarded for that sort of thing. Fox and I regularly look at Garmin's heart data, though we both tend to take some of its metrics with a grain or two of salt. For example, whenever I lose weight, Garmin seems to assume I'm losing muscle mass and it increases my body fat percentage. It's so radically off from other BF% measurements that I don't even pay attention to anything the scale says beyond raw weight. Its training status is iffy at best. However, a couple of things have been interesting to look at lately.
My resting heart rate is one thing I've been monitoring since I started trying to get in shape. When I started in 2016 my RHR was in the 80s, which is not great when you're my age. Okay, not great. It's now typically in the mid 40s. I've seen 30s at the peak of a training cycle. Garmin also tracks your heart rate variability, which is a measure of stress. We've all had the experience of being scared or stressed out and feeling our hearts start pounding, and that's the sort of stuff it tracks. Low variability is less desirable, high variability is better - in general.
On vacation, my HRV tends to go low at first, because being in a new place does place some stress on me. However, when we got home, my overnight stress remained high - in the 30s. Typically I'll see a stress measurement in the 20s, or the teens if I'm having a particularly calm and happily boring time. At the outset of Covid, my HRV was in the high 40s and it never slowed down. It's been improving since that (scary) point, and last night my average was nine. RHR was 45. I still feel poorly, but my body is acting like it won the war and it's now time to rest and recoup.
This weekend if I feel up to it, I plan to try walking my normal running route and see what my heart rate does then. I was reading some clinical guidance for athletes returning to training and it basically said to monitor heart rate and perceived effort, and go from there. If I don't have any unusually high heart rates I can start working back up to my normal training. For today I mainly plan to do some easy yoga - I feel tied in knots from the muscle and joint pain and could just use some relaxation. I mentally feel like I want to get moving again.
My sense of taste is also still gone - everything tastes like cardboard. I can taste salt and some extreme sour flavors, but not much else. Honestly I don't miss it, because at least now I'm not being driven by sugar cravings and dumb shit like that. I'll think I want something, take a bite and realize it tastes like sand, and lose interest. But that does mean some cookies from Gideon's Bakehouse went into the freezer.
The symptoms have mostly gone from whole-body to above the neck now. My cough is productive, but there's not much coming up. My breathing doesn't feel bad at all, though my throat's a little raw. I have a mild headache and some fatigue, and I'm still sweating like a beast. And that's an odd phrase because animals don't sweat.
Anyway, I credit my recovery to Dr. Crowley who provided consistent cat therapy by lying on my chest whenever possible, sometimes with his ass in my face.
We've been Garmin users for a while now, migrating from Fitbit because we wanted more fitness related data and Garmin seemed highly regarded for that sort of thing. Fox and I regularly look at Garmin's heart data, though we both tend to take some of its metrics with a grain or two of salt. For example, whenever I lose weight, Garmin seems to assume I'm losing muscle mass and it increases my body fat percentage. It's so radically off from other BF% measurements that I don't even pay attention to anything the scale says beyond raw weight. Its training status is iffy at best. However, a couple of things have been interesting to look at lately.
My resting heart rate is one thing I've been monitoring since I started trying to get in shape. When I started in 2016 my RHR was in the 80s, which is not great when you're my age. Okay, not great. It's now typically in the mid 40s. I've seen 30s at the peak of a training cycle. Garmin also tracks your heart rate variability, which is a measure of stress. We've all had the experience of being scared or stressed out and feeling our hearts start pounding, and that's the sort of stuff it tracks. Low variability is less desirable, high variability is better - in general.
On vacation, my HRV tends to go low at first, because being in a new place does place some stress on me. However, when we got home, my overnight stress remained high - in the 30s. Typically I'll see a stress measurement in the 20s, or the teens if I'm having a particularly calm and happily boring time. At the outset of Covid, my HRV was in the high 40s and it never slowed down. It's been improving since that (scary) point, and last night my average was nine. RHR was 45. I still feel poorly, but my body is acting like it won the war and it's now time to rest and recoup.
This weekend if I feel up to it, I plan to try walking my normal running route and see what my heart rate does then. I was reading some clinical guidance for athletes returning to training and it basically said to monitor heart rate and perceived effort, and go from there. If I don't have any unusually high heart rates I can start working back up to my normal training. For today I mainly plan to do some easy yoga - I feel tied in knots from the muscle and joint pain and could just use some relaxation. I mentally feel like I want to get moving again.
My sense of taste is also still gone - everything tastes like cardboard. I can taste salt and some extreme sour flavors, but not much else. Honestly I don't miss it, because at least now I'm not being driven by sugar cravings and dumb shit like that. I'll think I want something, take a bite and realize it tastes like sand, and lose interest. But that does mean some cookies from Gideon's Bakehouse went into the freezer.
