Tag: Fitness

How The Flu Affects Heart Rate Variability (HRV)

Man oh man, I got reminded of how much I hate being sick once again.

On a whim I decided to go to Portland for a day trip. We left at 7am, and here in the Pacific Northwest, depending on the weather, the day actually doesn’t brighten up until about 8:30am – 9:00am. That morning the sky was showing off in a fabulous way. The silhouette of the Cascade mountains, the sun peeking over from behind the mountains, and the sky…. the beautiful mix of orange, red, pink, and purple. It was a masterpiece.

And Portland? Portland was a blast! The coffee scene is on point and people are incredibly friendly. One of my favorite parts of the day was walking around the different neighborhoods and getting a feel for what each had to offer. I even had a chance to go to the Saturday farmer’s market and pick up a set of pasture raised farm fresh bacon. Let me just tell you – DELICIOUS!!!

Unfortunately I didn’t dress for the occasion and was freezing while walking around. I was lent a scarf and beanie which saved me from the worst misery 😉  Though I could tell by the way I was going from freezing one second to burning up another second that this wouldn’t end well.

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hrv

Experimenting with Heart Rate Variability (HRV)

In recent years I’ve heard of heart rate variability (HRV) time and time again. It was the newest thing to the quantified self but I had no interest… until now.

First, what is HRV? In short, HRV is an indicator of how well your body is managing stress. Over time, your personal HRV should be able to tell you whether or not you are ready for an intense workout, or if you should take it easy and go for a walk instead. If working out isn’t your thing, it can also indicate whether or not you have other stressors in your life, such as that big project you’re on at work, relationships, or simply taking on too much. Remember, your body doesn’t know the difference between mental/emotional/physical stress so it truly is about how well balanced you are with your life.

So why the sudden interest in HRV? Well, after experiencing adrenal fatigue, and knowing how I actually like the feeling after a hard training session, I thought it would be nice to find a way to measure A) how well my body was managing stress, and B) get a second opinion on how “ready” my body was to train for the day. While I’ve gotten a lot better with intuitively knowing when to rest and when to go hard, I also found that it’s pretty fun geeking out on this sort of thing too  🙂  Who knew?!

Before buying any gadgets I decided to first do my research. After scouring the internet and reading every article I could, I then read Mark Sisson’s Primal Endurance: Escape chronic cardio and carbohydrate dependency and become a fat burning beast!.

Here’s what I ended up purchasing as part of my arsenal. We’ll see how it goes in the next few months:

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