Sleep And Fitness Tracker Truth.

Whether we understand it or not, our body adapts well. We can acclimate ourselves to various diets, various climates, and our DNA allows for a lot of variation of sizes and physical abilities. Our body's ability to adapt is likely an accumulation of years of evolution.

For some reason, I can get by on a relatively few hours of sleep per day. I hypothesize that a lot of my strength and muscle mass gains could be more significant if I slept more.

For a couple of years, when I first started cycling, I slept in four-hour blocks. I would generally work from 5:00 PM until midnight, weight train until about 1:00 AM, and then get up at sunrise and ride 20 miles. I did this for a few years, and while I noticed, I did hills on the bike better than any of my fellow cyclists. There weren't many people that rode hills better than me.

For a couple of years, there was a time where I worked between 60 and 80 hours per week. There were many days where I would sleep for four hours--from 1:00 AM until 5:00 AM. I would work until about 2:00 PM, come home, take a 1-hour nap from 3:00 PM until 4:00 PM and work again from 5:00 PM until midnight. I would repeat this sleep cycle Monday through Friday, possibly catching up on sleep on the weekends.

I currently have a regular work schedule. I can sleep more, too--but I generally sleep, on average, way less than what I would naturally recommend.

A couple of years ago, I started using a Fitbit to track my sleep. I eventually started using a Bluetooth-enabled ring (the Oura ring) to track my sleep. Recently I started using an Apple Watch to track my sleep.

There is one thing I have noticed. I like the Fitbit for sleep tracking. The data presentation from the Fitbit app is impressive.

The Oura ring's data presentation is okay but not as good as the data that is presented by the Fitbit.

There are also things that I like about the Apple Watch, but my biggest issue is that I need to remember to charge it daily. I may not need to charge it every day, but I realize that a daily habit of keeping the battery charged is ideal for the long run. The one thing that I have noticed about the Apple Watch is that there are quite a few apps that can give you sleep metrics. With the Fitbit and Oura ring, the sleep app comes with it.

Now, I hypothesize that there is more to sleep than what we know. Even the metrics I compare from my three sleep trackers vary. While a lot of their recommendations and suggestion are similar, more often than not, a lot of their metrics do not match.

One aspect of sleep that I have experimented with is food. One of my favorite foods--if you consider water to be food--is measure how water affects the amount of deep sleep I get. I have found that Moutain Valley Spring Water allows me to reach at least 20% deep sleep 95% of the time. I have tried other types of bottled water, and none of them compare. The effect of Mountain Valley Spring Water is so dramatic that all most other types of bottled water might just as well be from the tap. Rarely have I ever gotten a good deep sleep from any other brand of bottled water.

Along with the water, over the years, I have learned about other factors that have done well to help me sleep. From supplements to foods to types of exercise, there are things that we can do that can help optimize the way our bodies recover during sleep.

If you want to know more about fitness or nutrition or would like a personalized one on one coaching, either comment below or click this link and schedule a strategy session with one of our fitness and nutrition coaches.

Want to know more about how to fat-adaptation strategies? Click this link and download our pdf version of  The Ketogenic Advantage Blueprint here.