pages tagged healthbloghttp://blog.spang.cc/tags/health/blogikiwiki2014-03-22T04:46:24Zfirst impressions of InsideTrackerhttp://blog.spang.cc/posts/inside_tracker_first_impressions/2014-03-22T04:46:24Z2014-03-22T04:46:24Z
<p>As a vegan and a female, I often wonder whether I'm getting proper
nutrition—especially when it comes to things like iron, vitamin
D, calcium, and B12, since these important nutrients are found in high
concentrations in animal products. While I can make guesses as to what
I'm not getting enough of based on how I feel, I've never really felt
certain whether I really <em>need</em> this supplement, or whether I ought to
be eating more lentils or what. Because the real way to figure that out
is to get a blood test, and I'm not a doctor and getting blood tests
for personal reasons in the US sounds expensive and like a lot of work.</p>
<table class="img"><caption>Life Size Lego Syringe by seanmragan</caption><tr><td><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/seanmichaelragan/5224385684/in/photostream/)"><img src="http://blog.spang.cc/tags/health/../../posts/inside_tracker_first_impressions/500x375-lego_syringe.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="lego syringe" class="img" /></a></td></tr></table>
<p>That's why <a href="http://www.insidetracker.com/">InsideTracker</a> caught my
attention. It's a service where you sign up for a blood draw, and they
perform a lab analysis on your blood for what they call "biomarkers";
basically a measure of the level of certain nutrients in your blood.
Then their websites gives you nutrition suggestions to improve your
results. As a person with a science background, and someone who wants to
be in charge of my health and maximize my well-being and energy, it
sounded perfect.</p>
<p>I gave it a shot. Here are my initial impressions.</p>
<h2>pros</h2>
<ul>
<li>Simple product choice. They only have two products, and are very
honest about the fact that this is because the B12 and D analyses
are a significant additional expense. I appreciated this explanation,
and still opted for the "Fitness Plus" product because I'm
particularly interested in those two markers.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://blog.spang.cc/tags/health/../../images/insidetracker_products.png"><img src="http://blog.spang.cc/tags/health/../../posts/inside_tracker_first_impressions/600x-insidetracker_products.png" width="600" height="375" alt="InsideTracker products page" class="img" /></a></p>
<ul>
<li>24-hour turnaround from blood draw to data on the website. Wow, I'm impressed.</li>
<li>God I love data. It's enough to get me excited about needles.</li>
</ul>
<h2>cons</h2>
<ul>
<li>Their website still has a few rough edges. I got distracted in the
middle of the signup process on the first go, and ended up in a
multi-day email back and forth with someone on the team there who kept
forwarding my problems getting my password reset to the engineering
team. And I never got any notification that my problem was finally
solved. A suggestion to the team: treat your early customers like
gold, especially when they bring a problem to you rather than walking
away. They'll be your biggest asset if you do.</li>
<li>They sometimes have marketing deals, but they seem poorly put
together. They were running a promotion for a while for free
home blood draw, which they normally charge $80 for, but I either
just barely missed it because I was dealing with account problems, or
couldn't figure out how to actually apply for the promotion. So
I ended up trekking from Cambridge to Newton to visit a LabCorp
office instead.</li>
</ul>
<h2>results</h2>
<p>My results were part unsurprising, part surprising. I have low blood
iron ("ferritin" and "hemoglobin"), low vitamin D (thanks Boston
winter), and <em>elevated</em> B12. I'm guessing the B12 is a combination of
my <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutritional_yeast">nutritional yeast</a>
obsession, fortified cereals, and the multivitamin I take daily.</p>
<h2>action plan</h2>
<p>I came up with a few things I plan to do based on my results.</p>
<ul>
<li>phase in a vitamin D supplement, at least until it gets warm enough to
get sunlight exposure</li>
<li>buy a big bag of red lentils and use them as a base to add vegetables
to for meals</li>
<li>phase out the multivitamin I currently take daily, and cut back on
breakfast cereal (which I don't usually eat for breakfast, but rather
as a snack when I'm feeling too lazy or too hungry to cook or in the
mood for something a bit desserty)</li>
<li>increase my leafy greens intake</li>
</ul>
<p>I'll aim for the lower end of the 3-6 months recommendation for my next
blood test. I particularly want to make progress on the low blood iron
levels.</p>
<p>I wonder how much blood levels of these "biomarkers" fluctuate on, say,
a day-to-day basis. I would love to be able to get faster feedback, and
I wonder how much the immediate context of when you get your blood drawn
affects results (despite the required 12-hour fast). I was on my period
when I got my blood drawn this time. Does that affect my results?
Unfortunately, getting more frequent blood draws at this point is
prohibitively expensive.</p>
<p>Even the 3-6-monthly blood draw is a fairly big expense, but if you're
someone like me who can spring for a $30 monthly supplement that you
might not actually need, the cost savings from the feedback might make
it cheap. And if it makes you healthier, that may be worth the cost.</p>
<p>We'll see what I think after I get my next test in a few months.</p>
standing deskhttp://blog.spang.cc/posts/standing_desk/2014-03-22T04:46:24Z2014-03-22T04:46:24Z
<p>I bribed myself to stop doing this:</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.spang.cc/tags/health/../../images/hacking_on_bed.png"><img src="http://blog.spang.cc/tags/health/../../posts/standing_desk/600x450-hacking_on_bed.png" width="600" height="450" alt="hacking on bed" class="img" /></a></p>
<p>With this:</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.spang.cc/tags/health/../../images/standing_desk.jpg"><img src="http://blog.spang.cc/tags/health/../../posts/standing_desk/600x450-standing_desk.jpg" width="600" height="450" alt="working at a
standing desk" class="img" /></a></p>
<p>I don't have a lot of space for a proper chair/desk setup at home, but
this little desk is something I could squeeze in with some rearranging.</p>
<p>It gets me out of bed to check my email in the morning, and is a good
deterrent to doing terrible things to my back on those days when I want
to hack on a personal project for a weekend day and don't want to go out
to a cafe or library.</p>
<p>My feet still hurt when standing for long periods though I got an
anti-fatigue mat, but I hear that gets better with time.</p>
<p>I still have a sitting desk at work which I'm pretty happy with.
This way I stand sometimes and sit sometimes too.</p>