NOOMin' It

I signed up for Noom for a year to try to give myself space to figure out how to make better food choices with all the weird food limitations I have due to my body being in a constant state of hyperalertness and reactivity.  (At least I know now why I'm so reactive - see illicit cats post here.)  Some thoughts during my second real-ish week doing the thing.

What I eat and what the scale says seem to be mostly unrelated.  Or at least not directly and obviously and immediately related.  I mean, I'm sure they are in some way, but, for instance, if I eat the number of calories on the lower end of the range they specify, there is no immediate corresponding change in my weight the next day.  If I eat over the number of calories in range they specify, sometimes I weigh less the next day.  They ask you how you are feeling with each weigh in, and I just default choose the thoughtful emoji because it's a mystery.

Sometimes I stay at the same weight for days at a time whether I am making good choices or not.  It's a thing.

Overall, the trend is down slowly and staggeringly.  Again, only on week 2, so small sample size.  But hopeful.  I know that changing how you think about and organize and eat food to healthier patterns is a long game, so hopefully the small wins will continue to add up (or subtract : ) and the end result will be something much healthier and maintainable with all my new, mindful, better for me habits.

They tell you that progress will not be linear and the scale is not the only place for celebrating wins.  There are other changes to look for in fit of clothing and body composition.  I am . . . always living with some (or all) brain fog, so, I don't notice these things, if they are happening.  Again, hopefully will become more obvious over time as my body adjusts.

Interestingly, I think the most clear signs that DON'T rely on me to notice them come through my buddy the Oura ring.  

CAVEAT: Right now I don't know if this is correlation or causation.  Time will tell.

I DID just launch a big, very stressful thing at work, and it wasn't a disaster due to extensive work and preparation.  But I've finished up big projects before while using the Oura ring without this kind of dramatic result set.  And work overall is still in a bad place, and I'm still feeling borderline burned out, and my manager is still quietly and kindly incompetent and hindering me from getting the promotion I earned several times over, so it's not like suddenly work stress is gone.  So time might tell if any of these things are real changes and not just blips from the project launch. 

Despite that, my Oura ring has been shocked and surprised at how much less time I spend in the stressed zone and how much more time I spend in the restored zone.  Y'all, this is statistically significant.  Sometimes I will randomly get this message once a week or month.  I don't know that I've ever gotten it for days in a row.  Like, all of them this week.  Including days I worked.  Including days I DROVE.  It's anomalous.  I love it and hope it continues and is tied to better nutrition and patterns I'm setting up through Noom.

My HRV average has been inching up.  You have no idea how bad it generally  is, and it is (not mysteriously now that I know about the cats) way worse when I live here at home than when I live in Canada or California.  HRV is about how much time you spend with your sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) active vs your parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest).  When you're stressed and, you know, your brain is a little broken by chronic illness and doesn't really know how to engage the parasympathetic nervous system (something that is supposed to happen smoothly and automatically), your HRV is lower.  It's a sign your body is under stress.  You know, like maybe because along with the chronic pain and disturbed sleep and such, your immune system is constantly fighting off an allergic reaction to cats.  And the world.  And eggs and sesame and pineapple (among other odd things).  HRV is kind of new as a vital sign, so there's not a "normal range," but in healthy people it starts high and generally declines with age.  Older adults (60+) average 25-45 ms.  I . . . don't think I have ever averaged anything that high.  I'm not sure I've ever gotten up to 45 at all, let alone averaged it.  I DREAM of being in older adult territory for my average.  But in the last week, that average has been a little higher.  More than once.  

My lowest resting heart rate at night has been dropping more consistently and has been happening earlier on average.  Since my health started to fall apart, my sleep has always been . . . nonstandard.  One of the reasons I stuck with Oura is that a lot of the score is based on doing the right behaviors.  Do you go to bed at a roughly consistent time?  Do you get up at a roughly consistent time?  Wearables always have a hard time figuring out if I'm actually asleep.  They generally think I'm in light sleep when I am totally conscious, awake, and doing things, so those scores are less useful.  But the one that shows when your lowest heartrate is and what your heartrate is doing overnight are fascinating.  They're supposed to show a sort of hammock shape where once you go to bed, it goes down until about halfway through your sleep and then come back up.  I have honestly never had that pattern.  My dysautonomia includes a feature where my heart just kind of doesn't know what it's supposed to do with itself.  Sometimes when I sit or lie down, it spikes.  (Spoiler alert: It is not supposed to do that.)  So at night it wanders all over the place and spikes when it shouldn't.  Very rarely, it hits its lowest point around 2-4 AM.  It's been doing that more in the last week than maybe ever.  And once it hits that low, the HRV goes way up corresponding with the second half of sleep when the body is supposed to be doing its best repair and reset work.

This does not mean I feel rested or that getting up is any easier.  Or that I have more energy during the day or less pain.  Alas.  But here's hoping these small changes are reflective of some good being done as I set up these new patterns, and the benefits will gain momentum and become more obvious.

Especially because the State Fair was in this sample set, and I probably ate every single thing I am reactive to (along with way larger quantities of food than I generally do), and the trends are consistent trends.

Dum spiro, spero.*  Dum NOOM, spero?  : D

*Thanks, Jo Walton's Among Others : D