What my Fitbit Knows About Me

Just a quick note - something I've observed from my fitness tracker. My Fitbit measures my heart rate with a little optical sensor on my wrist. It's not terribly accurate, but as always the trend is more important than the actual number. Besides steps and calories, it shows my average resting heart rate for the day.

Resting heart rate is supposed to be one measure for overall fitness, and also a measure of resiliancy. Lower is better. It tends to go up as you age, even though maximum heart rate from exercise declines with age. Mine has always been "good" based on my age and sex, a reflection of my genetics, not my fitness. But my resting heart rate has been declining since I retired, as I've been getting in shape and releasing tensions. However, I noticed Labor Day weekend that it had gone up quite a bit while we were sailing. The whole time, I was slightly on edge and it showed. As I've said, I love sailing but it has challenges - which is tied to why I like sailing so much. I was interested in how it impacted this measure of conditioning and resilience - it showed my anxiety.

After the sailing trip, it went back down to the range it's been living in. But after my mother died, it shot back up. Given circumstances, not a surprise, but exactly the kind of thing I find fascinating. I wonder if my self care efforts of meditation and exercise will be reflected in a decline, or will it stay up for a while anyway?

Emotions in the Body

My mother died Wednesday, unexpectedly but peacefully. She was 92 and had a life well lived. This post is not about her, but about me.

I have been working to get out of my chronic pain syndromes, and one of the key tenents of the approach I use is that much of the pain I have been experiencing is driven by suppressed emotions manifesting as body sensations. There is much more, about how things start up that way and then become habits, and how we talk to ourselves inside about it has profound implications for how we feel, and more. But one of the keys to getting out of these patterns is to allow myself to feel and express emotions safely.

In my mindfulness practice, this is also key. As we become centered and mindful, we observe the emotions and feelings and investigate them with kindness and curiosity. Observing our body and our thoughts and feelings, while not trying to suppress them, is part of the practice. The "body scan" is a specific mindfulness practice I've been focusing on all year. I've been getting much more aware of my physical self through both the practice and fitness, so I don't just think "I feel bad" but pause and investigate - my head hurts, over my eye, and my lower back is tight. I can breathe into my headache for a while, and then stretch and move for my back. It works. Mostly.

I find myself often waking around 4 am, with a strong feeling of anxiety. (This is new, in the past few months.) When that happens, I breathe, and feel the anxiety, investigate it. It manifests itself in the center of my chest, a tightness and a tension, and with tightening of many of my muscles. I consciously relax my body, feel my breath, and allow thoughts to drift across my consciousness. Is there anything to be anxious about? What is coming up, what happened recently? How is my chest now? Am I still relaxed in my hands and legs? With luck, I drift back to sleep and wake the next morning with no issues.

I have had a lot of anxiety around dealing with my mother. She has been on a rapid physical and mental decline and I found it painful. Literally. On days I was planning to see her I was likely to get a headache, or my sciatica would flare up, or I was extraordinarily fatigues. I procrastinated and avoided the visits. On days I worked myself into such a state I could call and say I wasn't going to come, the relief was a physical sensation, with a release of tension throughout the body. Since I retired, I tried to go see her at least twice a week (it was a 2-3 hour commitment each time) and I regret each time I didn't go. When I was actually with her, things were fine. She was cheerful, I dealt with practical matters such as finances and medicines, we chatted about the family and friends. It was all the anticipation that did me in.

I resorted to cheap tricks to get over the hump to go see her. I would treat myself to shopping at stores near her place, Target and PetSmart and Home Depot. Lately, I literally sweetened the pot by stopping by the best ever frozen yogurt place on the way home, SweetFrog. I would get a small cup of "original tart" with chocolate chips and be satisfied. The last time I saw my mother, last Monday, I took a different route deliberately as part of sugar decrease I'm working on. The raging in my body and my interior dialogue with high drama about this was amazing (I was working on a blog post about just that when things changed). I ended up stopping at the grocery store for ice cream, because I knew the "should I? no I shouldn't!" was going to continue all night if I didn't. Avoiding feelings of being deprived is a real thing. But when I got home with the ice cream, I popped it in the freezer and didn't touch it, thinking "I can have some tomorrow". The tension and the interior drama were done.

I realized this was an unhealthy approach, a short-cut to dealing with the underlying feelings that made this so hard. I needed to find the joy in visiting her for herself, not for unrelated payoffs. I was doing some expressive writing on the topic. And then, I got the call, and it was (as we used to say in my office) O.B.E.: Overtaken By Events. No longer needed.

Grief is manifesting itself physically in multiple ways. I'm working on allowing myself time to just feel, not to go get busy with the next task and next chore. I find my appetite diminished, slight nausea just around the corner. At the same time, the body is jonesing for bland comfort carb-laden foods - chicken noodle soup, bread and butter, I made pumpkin bread from a mix and scarfed almost half a loaf. I ate the previously purchased ice cream in lieu of actual dinner one night. Grief moves from the stomach to the throat and eyes sometimes when I let it. Sadness and regrets weigh me down like an extra forty pounds. Seeing and talking to friends and family about my mother is so very important, vitally sustaining, and yet fatigues my mind and body like nothing else.

I finally got back out there this morning to do my postponed scheduled run for the 5K training program I'm on, and spent time in the basement gym. This is very helpful at releasing the tension, oddly gives more energy than it uses, and is strongly an element of showing myself I am going to take care of myself. I'm going to go ahead and purchase prepared healthy foods so they are ready to eat when I can and when I feel like it, since the next few days will be busy and I won't be cooking. I hope to not be driven to junk foods that don't sit well.

I'll be fine, the family will be fine, we will always miss my mother. But I want to be sure to use the skills I have to take care of myself as I move through this special time.

Report Card

I made myself a report card. To some extent, the report card simply reflects what I can measure, not what is most important to me. But, because I can't control every outcome in my life, the report card also reflects what I am focusing on in the process. I can control what I do, and how that turns into important stuff is related, but outside my control.

The way to read this table is to not actually look at the specific numbers. I deliberately shrank the column size to obscure some numbers, and to make sure all twelve months will fit on a row. But I'm using the darkness of the color to reflect relative goodness. In some cases, a bigger number is better (eg, number of calories expended each day). In other cases, a smaller number is better (eg, expenditures). But I set the tones so darker is better in all things. The darker the column, the better the month was.

So first, fitness activities.  Calories and steps are from the fitbit. Averages can obscure extremes, so I also pull out active days (calories for the day were more than 2,000) and sedentary days (steps were less than 5,000 for the day). I use the Garmin for biking, walking, and running (only deliberate walks, not incidental steps during the day are counted). So as expected, August was pretty good in all measures. The surprise to me was May - as I recall, I started cutting back at work pretty heavily towards the end, and tried to get a jump start on fitness (and gardening projects). July suffered from the heat, but also possible from trying to do too much too soon in June, because I had some migraines and other bad days there.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug
Avg Calories Exp	####	####	####	####	####	####	####	####
Days >2,000 cal	6	7	7	10	16	14	12	13
Avg Daily Steps	####	####	####	####	####	####	####	####
Days <5 steps="" td="">	5	4	5	3	1	2	4	3
Miles Biked	-	-	-	-	-	-	5	9
Miles Walked	26	16	8	17	15	38	28	48
Miles Run	-	-	6	3	5	11	6	1

 The next group is about my weight. I can't control my weight, only what I eat. One of the proven techniques for weight loss is to track, so I'm reporting how many days I tracked. Lack of tracking in many ways reflects lack of effort or focus on weight loss. It's clear my weight has gone up since the first of the year. Not my main focus, but big sigh anyway. Besides tracking, I vowed to enjoy more, and waste less. I don't have a report on that, but I'm feeling like I'm getting there on both fronts.
  

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug
End Weight (week)	####	####	####	####	####	####	####	####
Days Food Tracked	0	10	0	0	0	0	0	16

 The next set of measures is meditation. This is measured because I use a meditation app, for guided meditations and as a timer. More meditation is an aspiration, and the coloring reflects that. The truth is, however, that January was so heavy on meditation because I was still in a great deal of pain from my knee surgery, and because I was upset a lot during the government shutdown. Meditation is a coping mechanism, so more might mean other things are off track. Also, recently, I'm feeling that I'm more mindful in transient ways throughout the day. Pausing to breathe a few times, feel my feet grounded, check in with my body. A good thing, and not captured anywhere but in my head.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug
# Min Meditate	439	235	178	81	143	295	215	333
# Times Meditate	42	22	20	11	15	23	21	29

I'm tracking my money, in total, and by categories. I'm showing food expenditures (as a proxy for reduced waste and more cooking at home) and money spent on gas, as a proxy for miles driven. Less is more! Fewer dollars are a darker, good, color.  June food reflects house guests, including liquor purchases. How nice to see the reduced driving reflected in the lower fuel bills. I only bought gas once during each of July and August. Total spending is fluctuating, as I figure out the periodic bills like taxes and insurance, formerly paid either through a mortgage payment or deducted from my paycheck.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug
Total Spend	####	####	####	####	####	####	####	####
Food Spend	####	####	####	####	####	####	####	####
Gas Spend	$72	$59	####	$87	$83	$84	$29	$26

Lastly are some miscellaneous things I can count, that maybe reflect some larger picture about my state of mind and energy. I track my books through Goodreader. Blog posts are obvious. "Trips downtown" show engagement with my peeps from work, and engagement on the culture front (museums, performances, etc.). And, being at the boat, as was explained recently, is my happy place.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug
# Books Read	8	7	4	1	0	12	11	9
# Blog Posts	6	8	7	6	3	6	8	7
# Trips downtown	--	--	--	--	--	1	5	2
# Days Boat	--	--	--	1	2	3	2	7

 So there you have my overview. If you step back and squint, more and darker green is a good thing, and in general, things are looking up!

Consistency Month

For my on-line running group, August was consistency month. I decided to use their techniques to up my game, and it worked pretty well!

This is the calendar of my walking from Garmin,
showing walks (of a mile or more each)
recorded on the Garmin walk.

I decided on a minimum baseline for every day: get dressed in my exercise clothes, walk for a minimal amount, and then come home and work out for a few minutes. The "minimum baseline" for each started out at 10 minutes, but I exceeded that every day and so mentally raised the baselines. It's clear that doing something every day consistently is paying off.

I'm walking a lot! No running in August, but walking to do errands as well as exercise walks added to my mileage. Now, in September, I'm starting up with my "micro-running", as I call it. But I don't think I would have started it if I hadn't built the base by walking.

This is my lower tech basement calendar,
showing what proportion of an hour I worked out each day.
"G" stands for days I went to the gym for training instead.

I'm also very consistent on the working out in my basement. Some days, I feel like crap, but I've really learned on a visceral level that some time working out is going to make me feel better. What I do at home is a combination of functional fitness, working out with weights, and stretching. I've ratcheted up my minimum from 10 minutes to 15 - but I'm consistently doing 20-30 minutes each day so far in September.

These have not yet become automatic habits. I still have to plan for it, argue myself into it, each day. But because both the walking and the working out are pleasurable in themselves, it's getting easier. And, I continually remind myself, this is not what I need to get out of the way before I can start my day. This is my day. As we learned in Younger Next Year, this is my job from now on. 

Feeling Sophisticated, Channeling Alice

Today dawned gloomy, as the hurricane skirts past. My plans to go downtown and meet folks fell through yesterday, so while I had a great, long, and satisfying gardening session instead, I was feeling the need to get out of the house. Inspired by how my friend Alice takes her freelance work on the road around her town, I've been checking out "third place" spots for me. (Alice's life often appears to me as the epitome of urban sophisticated lifestyle.) Today, I paid attention to how I dressed, loaded the laptop into the backpack and marched to downtown Silver Spring (just above a mile away). I had little food in the house, and a taste for Kaldi's mushroom toast.

I've been here over two hours, settled in with the laptop truly on my lap, surveying the people, learning about loading and editing youtube videos, posting away on the gardening blog. The combination of the great social space, fabulous healthy food, and responsive wifi tells me I've found at least one of my on-going spots. This is my third visit, and I'm feeling completely at home. Something to compare to Alice's Joyist hangout.

The space has a modern, industrial vibe, and the clientale  reflects the diversity of my town. University professors, millenials, immigrants, mothers with toddlers, folks on laptops, folks having conversations. And, besides coffee and good breakfast / sandwich / salad food, it's got a liquor license! I'm wearing over-the-ear headphones, piping in my own quiet classical music, as a nearby toddler was on the verge of irritating me. I didn't want to make the mother feel worse, and I think it's ok to be subject to (some) disturbance in public spaces - that's part of being out in the world.

Kaldi's Social House

My Heart

Too little sailing this summer (or any summer, for that matter). Too many other things on my plate, including doing nothing at all. Besides, my sailing partner is not yet retired, very engaged in her community, and uses scarce vacation time to travel with her husband. So while the boat has been out (and more often than the past couple of years), it hasn't been a lot.

Early voyage

We finally carved out time and space for a three-day cruise. It has been a couple of years since we've done more than just a single overnight, so we had some work to do, getting the boat ready to support us for an extended time. On a summer day sail, we don't spend any time below deck in the cabin. We did work on the plumbing and electrical systems, made sure we had stove fuel and ability to make coffee, and did extensive de-cluttering to have space to move below.

My sailing partner is one of my best friends from high school, "J". We used to skip school to go sailing together. We took her family's small, open, sailboat for a week at a time on cruises along Fire Island, lashing a tarp over the boom to sleep. I was J's maid of honor when she was married. But through multiple moves for each of us and diverging life paths, we lost touch with each other in our forties. This was before the internet, when we were dependent on Christmas cards for the basic check-in, and the post office only forwarded mail for two years. Miss a year on the cards, and poof! Gone! Through mutual friends back in the home town, I had some vague idea of the outlines of her life, and her of mine. She was living somewhere in Pennsylvania, and I was in the Maryland suburbs of DC.

Winter day

Then one day around the turn of this century, out of the blue I got a call from J. She had a short-term contract job for a contractor to the federal government and so was in the area. We met for dinner, and I realized she was paying out of pocket living expenses. Of course I asked her to stay with me in my guest room. She was the perfect house mate - home to her family on weekends, backup dog sitter during the week, self-sufficient in all ways. It was so delightful to realize that an old friend had become a new friend! Despite the different courses of our lives, we really connected well. She stayed three months.

As her stay was coming to an end, I propositioned her. I had learned she had inherited a little pocket cruising sailboat upon her father's untimely death. It was sitting on a trailer on a farm field in Pennsylvania, and she was in no position to bear the expenses of operating it - especially because her husband is an unenthusiastic and queasy sailor (though a good sport), so it wasn't a family priority. My deal was, if she supplied the boat and expertise, I'd bear most of the expenses. So on a cold, drizzly day in November, we went marina shopping, starting in Baltimore and checking out multiple places on the creeks along the Patapsco River. We ended up selecting the last one we found. That spring, J hooked the trailer to her van, and drove it down and dropped it in a nearby boatyard for commissioning. Several weekends we spent working on Salud, and finally dunked her and putted up to our new marina. Fun times for a few years in the little pocket cruiser with an outboard motor.

Snug, with no sails, in her slip

But after gaining some confidence for a few years, I yearned to go further afield in a more substantial boat. Salud was really seaworthy, but so small that moving aboard required coordinating with anyone else on board. Used fiberglass boats last virtually forever, and so can be found surprisingly affordable. In 2004, I bought my Mutima. She is considered small by today's standards at 28', but for 2-4 people she is sweet. Since both J and I are short, we can stand fully in the cabin. She is just small enough that in anything less than a full gale, we can pull her around a dock with brute strength. She has an inboard diesel engine (turn key, press button, she starts every time). She has a toilet, running hot and cold water, and an alcohol stove. J is fully my partner in taking care of her, and has boat privileges to go out without me. But she is my tiny little home on the water.

Earsplitting grin is customary

It took a long time to come up with the name. "Mutima" is a word that in several African languages of the Bantu family (including Swahili) means "my heart" and is often used as a proper name. In my brother-in-law's family, it is the nick-name mothers call their first daughter as a baby. Mutima is my happy place - my cozy bunk in her cabin is what comes to mind when visualizing where I feel safe and happy.

Sailing as an activity is also very important to me. Reading in Atomic Habits today, it was explained we enjoy activities where we are challenged but have a good chance to be successful. Sailing is most often in that sweet spot for me. Rarely boring, sometimes exciting, a tiny bit genuinely dangerous, it fulfills something in my soul. And J and I are so comfortable together that facing storms, contrary seas, biting flies, broken equipment, etc., are all handled with minimal fuss.

Always wonder if we'll fit!

This last weekend, we didn't have any of those problems. Things were close to perfect! We galloped down the bay at half again as fast as most of our summer day sails. We anchored in the early afternoon in a creek we had never been before. Minor boat chores, some swimming off the boat, and just hanging about and reading and chatting filled the day. We had prepared food in advance, so we had a tasty cold supper of roast chicken, cauliflower salad, ginger green beans, and sesame noodles. I was asleep with the falling of dark. The next morning, after coffee, we had a more frustrating motor-sail in fluky winds and a strong adverse current about half way back up north, again anchoring in a lovely sheltered creek in mid-afternoon. Repeat of the afternoon and evening activities. Monday's sail back north was speedy and fun, with a great, favorable wind taking us where we wanted to go.

I was so tired when we got back. We cleaned her up, offloaded stuff, and added on basic hurricane prep, just in case of Dorian. I was asleep by 8:30 that night. The next day I woke stiff and moved painfully, but a half hour down in the basement gym loosened me up and I feel great!

Nearly home