Wearables: Data Junkie vs. Expensive Jewellery - So Frickin' Mini

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:00:25

Megan.

Megan McCrory00:00:25

Yes, Donna?

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:00:27

Last night I was trying to fall asleep.

Megan McCrory00:00:30

Yeah.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:00:30

And while trying to fall asleep, my brain decided to keep me awake and busy with trying to count how many wearables you talk to me about and which one is good or not. And I was like, this is a great episode for so freaking healthy.

Megan McCrory00:00:45

Excellent. It's a good mini episode. So we'll have 10 minutes to talk about wearables.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:00:50

Let's do 10 minutes.

Megan McCrory00:00:51

All right.Okay, so first of all, are there any specific questions you have about wearables or do you just want me to talk non stop for 10 minutes about wearables, which, you know I can do?

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:01:01

Yeah, I know you could. No, we'll leave that for an hour episode.But what we'll do is, I think I was actually really curious because I know that a lot of people sit there and go like, well, I want a wearable, but which one do I choose? Which one is good for what? And things like that. So I would love to know about your experience with like, which one worked better for what.Do you have one super favorite that you'd say, like, it wins all? Yeah, yeah. Where do, where do they all land? Because there's so many of them nowadays, it's ridiculous.

Megan McCrory00:01:33

Exactly. Yes. And I actually do a lot of times when people see my wearables, especially the ring, they'll ask me about it.I have friends that will just be like, hey, I know you do wearables. What do you, you know, what do you recommend? And it really comes down to like, what do you want to track? Right.So a lot of people, some people are like, I just need to track my sleep. Okay. You don't need to wear a ring all day to track your sleep. There's stuff that you can do for that.There is very specific sport related trackers like golf swing analyzers and things for cycling and stuff like that. So there are so many trackers. The first question you have to ask yourself is, what do I want to track?Now, in general, I think most people want to track either their steps or in general, their overall health, which I feel like both watches and rings do a really good job now. And let me back up to say a wearable is literally as it sounds, but maybe it's a little funky. Is just a wearable computer.A computer that you wear somewhere on your body or near your person that, that tracks your biomarkers, your breathing rate, your heart rate, your blood oxygen, your blood glucose, your. I mean, so many things.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:02:51

So it does everything but make you coffee.

Megan McCrory00:02:54

Eventually they'll make coffee, I'm sure. Yeah, it, it, it is quite amazing. I remember back in the day, oh, maybe 10, 15 years ago, and I was using heart rate straps.And I think that was like the first, like, really mainstream wearable device was the heart rate monitor. Because that got such big press in the 80s and 90s. Well, actually from the 60s, 70s, 80s, you know, the heart was the big thing, right?And heart rate and knowing your heart rate and exercising in a certain heart rate. And so the first one was like a heart rate tracker where you wore it around your chest.And I think everybody has seen somebody running around with a heart rate tracker on their chest. And then now that's moved, obviously to your phone or your watch. Well, not your phone, but your watch or your ring or whatever. Yeah.So for me, I am a data junkie. If, you know, if you're listening to this, I love data.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:03:54

I'm Megan from episode one. Episode one should already have clarified that.

Megan McCrory00:03:58

I'm Megan, I'm the scientist. I love data. And I think it's also important to mention that the trackables and wearables, they collect all this data.But if you don't actually look at the data, then what are you wearing it for now?

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:04:13

What's the point?

Megan McCrory00:04:14

Yeah, it could be like a elephant, you know, a dumbo with a feather type of a thing. Like, oh, I have my watch on, so I know I need to go when I want to put my watch on when I go for a walk so I can track my steps, that's fine.It's kind of an expensive feather, but. Yeah, but if you want to. So, okay, the wearables that I use, I use an Apple watch and I have one of the most recent ones.My husband got me a new one last year and also a ring. And I'll tell you the reasons why I have these two things. First of all, the watch I've had forever. I had it since the Apple watch came out. I love it.My primary functions are, yes, tracking, like my activities, so sports tracking, walking, stuff like that. I use it daily, actually, for the timer function, which sounds silly, but I use it all the time for the timer function because I have adhd.And timing myself is a way that I have used to keep myself from spiraling into whatever. It could be a reading a good book, watching TV or whatever, but also just to time my tea. Right? Yeah, yeah.But the reason I got the ring, and this is probably a no, we're way fast running out of time here, but I feel like this is the One thing I want to say, so the ring was really helpful as a female because it helped me track my menstrual cycles. And the reason I need that is because I don't have a uterus.So I had a hysterectomy when I turned 39, and I had lost all visibility on my tracking for my cycles. And going into the stage of life where I will be doing perimenopause and menopause, I really wanted to have that visibility.And I was fortunate enough to have a friend who had an Oura ring. I think it's a Gen 3 Oura ring. And they weren't using it anymore because they bought it, but they weren't looking at the data.So they're like, why wear it?

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:06:17

Okay, yeah.

Megan McCrory00:06:18

And so I started wearing it. And one of the things that both the watch and the ring do is test your skin temperature. And your skin temperature is a really good indicator of a.Where a female is in their menstrual cycle. And also how relaxed or stressed you are, as well as your heart rate. But also if you are calm, your skin also cools down.So I, I am wearing it primarily for this reason because I can see very easily where my period or where my menstrual cycle would begin and my ovulation cycle is. And that's just really helpful because now I can track this and then I can see, oh, has my body stopped doing that?And then I will know that I've gone through menopause without actually having stopped my menses.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:07:09

Right, so it's basically showing you your hormone fluctuations. Yes, basically. Or it picks up on the hormonal fluctuations and that gives you a good indication. That's amazing.I didn't even know that that does that. I mean, we both wore.I know you did that many times more than me, but we Both tested out CGMs as well to monitor our glucose and to kind of pick up on how does that work and how does that change my habits and what am I learning that I didn't even know? Which was quite fascinating. We did record a lot of information on it and never published it. So this is a good place to be. Like, yeah, awesome. Okay.

Megan McCrory00:07:50

Well, yeah, but it's good that you mentioned that because I just finished a study. There was a glucose wearable study here in Switzerland that I did, and I had to wear another ring and another watch.So I had two rings and two watches on for a month. And. And I just cataloged my food.And then it also had a CGM on and I Haven't got the data back from that yet, but I'm really excited and maybe we'll do another little mini when I get the data back.But I also have a box of the Stello CGM which is by Dexcom I bought the last time I was in the US because they also pair or partner or integrate with the Oura ring. And the Oura ring has a way for me to track what I'm eating. Right. And I don't need to log put everything in. It's like an AI thing, right?You take a picture and it analyzes it and it tells you, oh, this is what you've eaten. And you can, you know, adjust it if needed but then you integrate the CGM with it and then it has all the stress data, it has all my hormonal data.So I was waiting to do that until this test, the, until this other study was over. Cuz I didn't want to wear two CGMs at the same time.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:08:59

Two CGMs, two rings, two watches.

Megan McCrory00:09:02

Yeah.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:09:02

So walking down.

Megan McCrory00:09:05

So I'm gonna start putting that together and doing that probably this week or next week where I'm, you know, now that I have some body parts that don't have any wearables on them.But yeah, and amazing in general, I think there's, you know, when I was doing a little bit of looking around, there's way more trackers and sensors and wearables than I even, than I even thought about. So I can see how it can be overwhelming, but I just see that our 10 minute timer is up. So I'm gonna leave it there.But we would ask listeners if this was interesting for you, do let us know because I think we could go on. Well, I could go on.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:09:48

You could, yeah.

Megan McCrory00:09:50

For a very long time about this topic. But we'll leave it there. All right, Donna.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:09:55

All right, thanks Megan.

Megan McCrory00:09:56

See you later.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:09:57

Bye.