I have this idea that this year I will track random things for one week and share on the blog. Not sure what it will be (drop requests in the comments) but I think it might be fun. I have shared household stuff and outfits last year.
In Germany health apps can be prescribed and then will be paid by your health insurance. I finally gotten around to activating two of them. One is my last attempt in sleeping better and the prescribed app is called BetterSleep. The second one is an app that analyzes your glucose levels and correlates them to the migraines. Unfortunately I have underestimated how much time I have to handle all the tracking and started both three month programs within a week. I was clearly not thinking. Sigh. But I am determined.
Well let’s make a post out of it since I am already tracking everything why not also track the tracking. HA!
Monday
7.00am – opening my Better Sleep app and adding the data for the night. 4.25 hours of sleep I am already done for the day
7.05am – opening my glucose tracking app and checking my levels. This night I didn’t get below the recommended range. I also read the weekly notes.
1.30pm – documenting my meal in the glucose app
2pm – taking my vitamin D
5.37pm – documenting my snack in the glucose app
9pm – opening my glucose app to do a test challenge and checking cooking requirements
9.25pm – documenting dinner in the glucose app
9.35pm – reading my sleep coaches feedback. I am currently the midst of sleep restriction therapy (meaning I can only be in bed 0.45am to 6.45am). I am not happy. And i can no longer read in bed. Sigh. At least my nighttime ritual seems to be on point.
9.44pm – documenting all exercises in the glucose app.
11.38pm – taking my magnesium
For the migraine therapy app I was sent a glucose chip that I have currently at my arm and will carry around for 14 days. During that time it records my glucose levels. In order to know when they rise and fall I need to track all my meals and drinks. Additionally everything else to get the full picture: sleep, emotions, exercises, period, medication and liquids. I also have to read some articles and stuff. It’s also recommended that I do 2-4 challenges where I have to eat certain things (e.g. rice, potatoes, noodles for three nights at the same time to see how my body reacts to it all).
Tuesday
7.44am – checking glucose app for levels, last nights meal reaction and reading two new notes. Another night my levels dropped into the red. I wonder what that means. No info found in the app so maybe I need to schedule a call.
7.55am – opening the Better Sleep app to add last nights data. Reading two articles.
1.20pm – cooking lunch according to the instructions
1.35pm – documenting lunch data
4.30pm – documenting my (first) coffee
7pm – documenting my dinner
For my sleep Better Sleep App I need to fill out a questionnaire every night and every morning. Document my sleep date – unfortunately it doesn’t integrate Apple Watch date – and then they give me weekly coursework I need to get through. Each contains a few exercises. I also need to write down some thoughts. A coach will get back to me. However I am not convinced these are real coaches. It all sounds rather AI-like.
Wednesday
7.09am – opening sleep app and adding the data for the night. 5.15 hours. It will a long day. Starting a few session in the next course section
7.28 am – opening glucose app to check data from yesterday and my reactions, reading two new articles
1.35 pm – documenting lunch
7.53pm – documenting dinner
11:43 pm – watching 5 short video lessons in the glucose app
Thursday
7.43am – checking data in glucose app and watching a couple video lessons
8.11am – tracking a starting migraine in my migraine app (Pain Cal)
8.15am – opening sleep app and adding the data for the night. 5.55 hours but only because I ignored the defined sleep window
9.10pm –documenting dinner
11.50pm – checking reaction to dinner in glucose app and adding a snack
11.59pm – sleep app day report
Friday
0:08am – taking my vitamin D and magnesium
9.08am – adding data to sleep app. 6.28 hours – with a 108 min gap in-between
9.17am – checking glucose levels and reading through the daily articles
13.30pm – documenting lunch
9.15pm – documenting lunch, exercises, dinner
11.15pm – taking my Vitamin D
Saturday
0.07am – taking my magnesium
7.30am – checking the glucose app, adding data and watching the daily lesson
7.38am – adding data to sleep app and doing 30 min of course work
3.10pm – documenting my after workout shake
4.50pm – documenting breakfast
9.55pm – photographing dinner at a party for later documentation
Sunday
1.48am – taking my Vitamin D and magnesium
8.59am – adding data to sleep app, reading one article
9.07am – checking glucose app, reading one article
2.45pm – documenting breakfast
19.11pm – documenting my cheese cake snack
11.45pm – taking my Vitamin D and magnesium
So much for one week of documenting. I will be doing another week of glucose tracking. The sensor I am currently having stuck to my arm runs another 6 days. I will need to finish up a few challenges in order to have comparison data. It is interesting to see that the breakfast from the first weekend was spiking while the one last weekend had no reaction really. I am not sure why that is. Unfortunately until today the app doesn’t give any real feedback. Maybe I need to track everything first and then they will get back to me? Not sure.
As for the sleeping: the reduced bedtime training I had to do the last two weeks sucks BUT I can actually see an improve in sleep quality. And that is what this therapy aims for. I sleep not much as you have seen in the protocol above but I have only once been awake for over an hour during the night. So I will try to stick to this for now as much as possible but I will give myself some slack if I feel I migraine coming up or am just too exhausted.
Do you use any apps for your health monitoring? Is your health insurance prescribing apps? Have you ever been able to check your glucose levels? Can you tell – without tracking – when your glucose levels are too low?
14 comments
Whew! That’s a lot of tracking! I love that you tracked your tracking. :-)
I use my Apple watch in tandem with my CPAP machine to track my sleep, and I also use my Apple watch to track my steps and exercise. Otherwise, I am terrible at tracking things!
Well, you already do lots of tracking too. I sometimes wonder if all this tracks is the problem because we don’t tune in to our bodies anymore.
I have a Garmin which tracks sleep, resting heart rate, HRV etc. I would have no idea where my glucose levels sit. I’m fascinated by this though, will yuo give us an update of what you find/if it helps?
Yes, I can do that if anyone is interested. And you seem to be.
For now I am a bit surprised that my glucose levels are pretty stable and rather low. The app doesn’t give much feedback so I am a. It lost. Maybe that is all normal?
I am tracking everything you track with my Apple Watch too.
I would never let an app know my health information, but that’s just me. I don’t even do the “wellness screening” for my health insurance. It’s because health insurance is tied to employment here and I don’t want them to know anything good or bad. I just hate it all. If my doctor prescribed an app, I would probably lose my teeny tiny mind.
This is all very interesting. I like knowing numbers and was trying to be fat adapted several years ago and really wanted a glucose monitor, but that is something that, at the time, had to be prescribed, so I never did it. However, I am always fascinated by how the numbers change depending on diet and exercise. You may know that my major in college was Kinesiology and we did a lot of those kinds of studies. I once had to fast then ride a bike and get pricked every few minutes to read my glucose levels. It was very fun. Haha. I have a running watch (Coros) and it tracks a lot, but not glucose. However, I used to get tested every year through my insurance, and will go and get a comprehensive exam in a week to check where my levels are now. I like to check every couple of years at the very least!
I had no idea about your college major. So interesting.
It sounds very interesting and exciting to study these kind of things.
I think they test your glucose here in the full exams too. You can get them every three years I think. I am due for one this or next year. not sure.
For the glucose monitors I think you can get them now if you pay for them. At least I heard it is possible in Germany. My arctic coach has done it a few times.
Unfortunately I have no one interpreting the levels for me at this point. I am hoping that after my two week measuring phase someone will put the numbers in perspective. Right now I can only say that I am inside the recommended window. Only during the night it dropped into the red.
I think seeing and knowing these health numbers helps a lot to understand the body better. At least for me it is easier to make changes when I see it in numbers.
Damn, but that’s a lot of tracking stuff and in putting info into apps. Not sure I wouldn’t go nuts after day 2 let alone do this for a couple of weeks. But yes, I understand how important this can be on both counts, for sleep and sugar levels. Both of which have such a big effect on our bodies.
I hope you figure it all out.
I am obsessed with tracking, lol. There’s even a spot in my planning to track some items each week, and I’m using it to write down how many apneas I had each night, my total sleep hours, and what movement I did. I use my Apple watch to do a lot of tracking right now.
Tracking stuff is our jam, right?
My Apple Watch is my trusted companion as well.
Do you not eat in the morning? Is your first meal of the day at noon or 1? I would have thought that would affect your glucose levels in a bad way, but it sounds like your numbers are good, so maybe that’s fine for you. Every person is different, right?
I don’t have an app or track anything, except the bloodwork that my doctor orders.
I usually eat late. When the husband is doing Homeoffice it’s usually around 1pm. When I am on my own I might eat a little earlier depending on my schedule and my hunger levels. I learnt the hardest that if I do intense exercise I need to eat before and during otherwise I trigger a migraine.
I deliberately tried to get into a low glucose feeling the past two weeks. Like when I feel a migraine is coming and I need to eat stat. The levels didn’t really show the feeling I had. I think if I would have forced it it would haven shown in the graph what I already knew from listening to my body.
However for now I have not gotten any feedback on what I have tracked just whatever I googled and already knew. So I am hoping this program will supply some sort of validated information. The glove monitoring ended today. We’ll see.
As you know, I am all about the stats and numbers and this is super-fascinating to me. I hope you gain some valuable insights. I feel like knowing these kind of patterns can really help sometimes to make small changes with huge impacts! Very curious how this goes!
I feel a little lost with these apps if I am perfectly honest. No real feedback but now I am supposed to include my learnings.. what? I can reach out to a team but haven’t done so. I loved the glucose tracking. That was really interesting.