Lost Weight! Slept Great!

Hey, that rhymes.

If you look at the bottom of the page today, it'll say I'm down about 3 lb. from where I started, but that's not actually accurate. Because I used MyFitnessPal a few months ago to lose weight, it registers my starting weight as 184.6 lb. A few weeks ago I was way up at 188 lb. So I'm just adding an extra 3 lb. to whatever that number is. 6 lb.! Six pounds! I lost six lb.

Last night I slept great. I mentioned yesterday that I was trying out a new app called Sleep Better from Runtastic. After a lot of research - and I mean I spent the whole day - parts of which I should have been doing other things, probably - I decided to switch over to Sleep Cycle. It seems that Sleep Cycle is the original sleep app, or at least the one that made it popular to stick a phone on your bed to track movements. For $0.99, I think I've found a worthy purchase. It takes a few nights for the app to calibrate and learn your movements, but after that it should be reasonably accurate. And, this morning, the first morning (so theoretically the least effective it will ever be), it woke me up delightfully. The soothing alarm clock, the fact that I wasn't being raised from the dead of deep sleep, left me feeling energetic and optimistic about the day.

Just to satisfy your curiosity, here's some other results of my research:

• The sleep apps that monitor your movement/sound/heart rate like Sleep Cycle are not going to be terribly accurate, but they're so cheap it's worth it. And as far as being an effective alarm clock, they're great.
• If you want a truly accurate picture of how you sleep, you need to go to a sleep clinic where they'll hook you up to an EEG, EKG, measure your breath, skin moisture, and a whole bunch of other things to tell when you switch from one stage of sleep to another. The apps over-simplify sleep cycles to a point where they're saying things that just aren't true. For instance, many claim that REM is Deep Sleep. False. REM is important, and Deep Sleep is important. You need both. But they are not the same. Similarly, Light Sleep should be divided into a whole bunch of categories.
• The Sleep Apps claim that you can tell what stage of sleep a person is in by how much the move in bed. Also false. While it is true that you move less in REM and Deep Sleep, you don't suddenly go static.
• Outside of a sleep clinic, the best sleep tracker available is the Basis line of watches (most recently the Basis Peak). They have a highly sophisticated set of sensors in them that track movement, sweat, skin temperature, heart rate, and communicate it all to your phone. At $200, it's pretty cheap compared to a sleep clinic. And it will follow you around all day. AND! This Friday is Black Friday, and Monday is Cyber Monday. Two great opportunities to pick one up. But I won't. Why?
• Two counts against the Basis Peak:
• The battery lasts only 4 days. If this is an all-day tracker, AND I'm using it to track my sleep, when do I get an opportunity to charge it twice a week?
• There were reports of inconsistencies in the readings versus other heart rate monitors, especially during exercise. Besides, I have a HRM that I really like already. No plans to ditch it.

In other news, Wifey is ill today and is staying home from school, where she teaches 5th grade general studies. Wish her well! She has orders from me to drink huge, copious amounts of fluid, and if it's tea, with honey.

Today I lift.