Monday, May 18, 2015

Health Update/Fitness Tracker

I have been avoiding this post for a full week. Last Monday was my first physical in five years. The only concerns I brought up was insomnia and weight gain. The doctor suggested I take Melatonin to help regulate sleep, and try to follow an earlier bedtime. She issued a full blood panel.

The iron, cholesterol, thryoid, and most everything else was within normal range. My Vitamin D was low, and my glucose was high. The cut off for A1C cutoff is 5.6; mine was 5.8. The cutoff for glucose is 100; mine was 102. The levels were elevated just enough for me to be labeled prediabetic. My glucose levels were borderline in March when my OB/GYN  tested them. My diet has only worsened then, so I feel like I will be able to get the levels back in normal range with healthier eating choices. In addition to better eating choices, I will also take two Melatonin supplements a half hour before bed, and a daily Vitamin D.


While diet is going to be the greatest factor in controlling my blood sugar, daily exercise is significant in lowering glucose levels. I'd been researching a FitBit for a few months, and was really excited when a former colleague posted last Wednesday that she was selling her fitness tracker for $50. I just so happened to receive a $50 Visa gift card from my Secret Sister (triplet mom thing) for Mother's Day. I picked up the tracker at my friend's school (located right by Latta Plantation) the next day. The UP24 has even better reviews than the FitBit in several categories, and I've really enjoyed becoming familiar with the features.


It's helping me become more aware of my sleep patterns.


It even makes suggestions, such as setting a bedtime reminder to encourage me to fall asleep at an optimal time.

Of course the main feature is the glorified pedometer. Over the past few days, I have not gone to the gym and haven't met the 10,000 steps goal. Today was the first day I actually reached the steps goal. When I got out of Zumba this evening, my phone sent me an alert asking me to log my workout since it detected a significant increase in activity from 6:55-7:49. It's amazing how fast and automatic it is!


I haven't quite mastered the food tracking component. While it is able to scan barcodes, none of our Aldi products are in the database. It isn't letting me enter the nutrition facts manually either, but there's probably user error involved. Now that I understand the sleep and activity tracking, I'm going to focus on the food tracking.

While I'm not as concerned about the prediabetes as I probably should be, it is definitely motivating to be more conscious about my diet and exercise. I have a follow up appointment in August, so we'll see what changes I'm able to make over the next three months.

1 comment:

  1. Hey Bonnie! I don't know about Jawbone, but I use Fitbit and use the my fitness pal app. The app is easier to use to track food (I shop aldi a lot and will search "aldi deli ham" or whatever and it comes up). The Fitbit app automatically takes the myfitnesspal data and calculates it for me! Look into it, because it is easy if it will work with your jawbone app!

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