Bitesize Biohacks Insights To Track For Optimising Health & Performance

11:44AM Sep 15, 2022

Speakers:

Angela Foster

Intro

Keywords:

helpful

track

angela

listening

important

supplements

hrv

insights

body composition analysis

episode

menstrual cycle

foster

lumen

genetics

device

effectively

longevity

overreaching

find

measurements

Sometimes if is elevated for quite some time after going to bed, it could be because you're very stressed from the day you've kind of got that overhang. Perhaps you haven't really effectively bookended your day.

Welcome to the high performance health podcast with your host, Angela Foster, the show where we talk about everything you need to break through limits and achieve a high performance, mind, body and lifestyle.

Hi, friends, I can't believe how quickly September just seems to be kind of almost running away. I hope yours is going well. Continuing with the theme of insights, in my shift protocol for this episode of Bite Size bio hacks, I want to give you a sort of an insight effectively into some of the insights that I gather and track in relation to my own data. And some of these are usable or wearable devices. I say usable because things like lumen device that you can blow into and others you actually wear that can really help to give you insights and things that I look at and track, which may be helpful. But then what we'll also do is a separate episode in terms of journaling, because I think that has a huge place, if I'm honest. And as she is one of the most powerful things that I personally practice on a on a daily basis. And then also intermittently. Also I journal on a monthly basis as well. And also on a on a week to week basis. So that will be in another episode. But today, I'm just going to share some of the key tools that I use to be able to get independent assessment of the things that I'm tracking and how I'm doing how I'm faring effectively. So one of the things that I do every day is not to become obsessed with it. But really, as I say just for feedback, and I think that's the critical thing I'd say about all the things I'm going to mention here is we don't want to become obsessional about these things, we just want to use them as an independent tool. So one of the first things really is tracking my sleep, which I do. And I do that in a combination of ways. So I use the aura ring. And I also now use that bootstrap as well, because I'm kind of seeing I was really excited about the new menstrual cycle tracking that we have been offering and how they've really updated their algorithms to even and their kind of AI system to take account of even zone one movement, and also got better at kind of sensing psychological stress. So that was really exciting for me. And I'm definitely noticing that as a second time round user of whoop. And actually, I've been using it to measure my strain as I'm working out. And it's got a very cool thing where you can actually collect to record the activity that you're doing. And then because we you can plug in where you are in your menstrual cycle at the beginning. So it's then tracking it will actually tell you if you're overreaching too much during that workout. And if you've hit the strain for that stage of your menstrual cycle, so so it's something really cool, actually, that I'm playing with at the moment. And seeing how much it kind of resonates with me. And as I said, I do think journaling really has its place. And getting in touch with yourself it journaling is a great way to do that, and your own intuition. And you see how that kind of holds up for the way you feel. So that's something I'm playing with at the moment. But I think that both whoop, and ora are fantastic for tracking sleep, King at deep sleep and REM sleep metrics for looking at HRV. I'll have a look and see, you know, When did my heart rate reaches lowest resting pulse during the night? Am I developing that kind of hammock curve where it sort of gets to its lowest sort of midway through the night and then slowly starts to rise again towards the morning with that early morning wakening cortisol response. Some days if is elevated for quite some time after going to bed, it could be because you're very stressed from the day you've kind of got that overhang. Perhaps you haven't really effectively bookended your day. b&b that you've eaten something that has disagreed with you, maybe you've got an intolerance. So as I say, All this data is really helpful for looking at it and just kind of dissecting really what might be going on for you and checking in with yourself. I always have a look at my breathing rate. I like that to be, you know, breathing rate overnight of around 1212 to 13 breaths a minute, I know that, again, if that's going up or rising, it could be that I'm coming down with something could be that, you know, I'm a bit more stressed, for example, and also looking at HRV seeing how robust that is how well recovered I am by the morning. And again how long it took for that kind of bounce back in HRV. If I've been overreaching during that day, and that early morning reading is actually really, really important. And you can listen to my recent podcasts with Dr. Jay Wiles on that this week to find out more about how important that first morning reading is and also how you can use his new device Hanu health to actually measure that first thing in the morning but also during the day. So you can go back and listen to that episode for more really around HRV. So I find those devices very, very helpful. They give You readiness scores, show you how you sleeping and also how much sleep you're getting. because sleep is really, really fundamental.

You've heard me talk about a lot to both performance and longevity. So that's something that I track, I also intermittently track my blood glucose by using a continuous glucose monitor. The the interface that I've really enjoyed using the most is actually the very app. And again, I'll put links in the show notes, if you want to try out very, I believe, you can get a 20% discount if you go to bit dot L Y, forward slash get very 20. But we will find that and put it in the show notes for you. And that's really, really helpful, particularly during it if you are still in your cycling years across the menstrual cycle, so that you get more than just two weeks of data from a sensor, but you get the whole of the menstrual cycle because your glucose sensitivity does vary. And that can be really helpful for finding out how you react to certain foods and also food combinations. So you know, eating like banana, for example, for me on its own will just send my blood sugar, bananas. And so that's really, really helpful. The other one I use is the lumen device that's also really helpful for actually measuring how your cells are what they're using as fuel. So that's super helpful. And so you can see in my waking up, you know, in that fasted state, am I have I transitioned into fat burning mode, or am I burning carbs, and is also particularly helpful, for optimising I find the length of your fast because if you're in a fat burning state, and then you're sort of doing a bit of extended fasting, and you start to see yourself, move into burning carbs, then you can actually sort of assess that you are beginning to stress the body out, which is particularly important for women who are in their menstruating years, and then have something to eat and actually just maybe shorten the length of that fast. So lots of different ways that you can use the lumen device. And I talk about all of these, in my membership, the female bio hacker collective, we actually go into detail on these devices, and how you optimise the way you're using them as a wonderful community of women. So if you want to find out more about that, then just head over to Angela foster.me, forward slash bio hacker. The other kinds of things that I measure is I do do body composition analysis. So things that you can do there is to look at bone density, and also to look at your muscle mass. And that's really important because we know that muscle mass unless we're paying attention to it and strength training and you know, eating sufficient levels of protein in our diet does decline with age. And bone density, particularly for women kind of drops off a cliff really as they reach menopause. So that's also very important. And I think there's much more to look into that data important than for example, looking at what your weight is, and I think many, many women struggle when they get on the scales. And that's a number that can then kind of influence their mood for the day. And certainly what I found from working with so many people is that muscle is, you know, you may weigh more, or you may feel that you're not losing as much weight as you expected. But actually you're getting smaller. And that's because muscle is more compact, you can actually get those nicer sort of neater curves and that more toned look, but you may not be changing that much on the scale. So it's always worth taking measurements, if you can't do something like a DEXA, or you haven't got a really good body composition machine, for example, at your gym that you can actually rely on, then you can even just take measurements yourself. So you can do like waist measurements and hip measurements and combine those with your weight. And I think the Zone diet actually has a really good calculator online, that's pretty close. When I compare it to body composition analysis that my clients have had, it's actually very close in terms of what it does. So that's something you can you can do as well. I'll link to that in the show notes. But all these things are really helpful to track. And then intermittently, I do track different lab results. So I'll do my bloodwork a few times a year, to make sure that I'm tracking what's going on there also really helps me to optimise the supplements that I'm taking currently been working with bionic company who do blood testing, and then create personalised supplements. That's been really really insightful and just actually really personalised, my supplement range to that. So that's something I've been using. Again, I'll put links to more information on that. And discount codes, if you want to try it in the show notes to this episode. I also do, and you'll have heard me talk a lot in relation to the previous episodes on hormones the Dutch test. So that's something that I do on myself as well. And you can go back and listen to the Bite Size bio hacks on hormones to really get some insights there in terms of what that test can provide as

well. And then the other things I look at our gut testing, and also genetic testing, and that's really important. That's something you only really need to do once because if you're doing DNA testing, you can kind of find out where that I find that's a really good baseline for pointing you in the right direction of where to look for things because really what we want to do is to optimise the expression of our genetics as the most important thing so our DNA may hold the wind load the gun, but effectively, it's our environment that pulls that trick gut. And so understanding certain parts of our genetics really help us to influence positive outcomes. And give us lots of information about ourselves and also before embarking on any kind of restrictive diet, for example, like the keto diet, I would definitely encourage you to have a look at your genetics and see, are you highly sensitive to fats and saturated fats and things like that, because it's really, really important to look at that before starting to go on any kind of restrictive diet. And I have a whole longevity blueprint that I run in relation to that. And so if you want more information about when that is next opening up, then just email us over at info at Angela Foster performance.com. But those are kind of some of the key things that I do. As I say, I think there's a lot you can do as well for free. And that's what I'm going to be covering in next week's episode is actually just using your journal and your own intuition to understand and track these things and look for insights and see patterns. So join me next week for an episode on journaling, where I'll be sharing more there. Thanks so much for listening to another episode of the High Performance health podcast. We really hope you enjoyed the show. And this podcast wouldn't happen without listeners and supporters like you and the best way to support the show and to support me is to head over to iTunes or whichever platform you're listening on and provide us with a five star review. This really helps us to spread the message wider and help and impact more people to optimise their health and longevity. And if we read out your five star review, please reach out to us at info at Angela Foster performance.com with your name and your postal address and we will send you a call biohacking supplement or something else. Thanks again for listening and until next time, hit by a sinking and stay optimised. Please know that while I tried to cover as much information to help you as I can on these bite sized episodes, none of the things I mentioned should be taken as a substitute for medical advice before taking any supplements or anything else. Please consult first with your medical doctor.

Thanks for listening. Remember to review and subscribe. You can grab the show notes, the resources and highlights of everything Angela mentioned over at Angela Foster performance.com You can also snatch up plenty of other goodies including the highly helpful Angela recommends page which is a list of everything she personally recommend to optimise your mind, body and lifestyle