Day 45: Before and after

 This morning's pre-breakfast chore (before it gets too hot and sunny):

Yes, those suckers!

I took a little step stool out to sit on while I worked at this.  As I was snipping away, I heard my name called, and there, taking his morning walk was a fellow I used to work with.  He's now retired, and has moved over to the condos to my north.  I had heard that from a fellow former workmate who is still working, but with the pandemic and all, this was the first time we encountered one another "in the neighborhood".

I asked after his sister, who used to live at the end of the street.  She used to walk her little dog past my house, but I hadn't seen her lately.  Turns out she's moved up to South Dakota into a care home, nearer to her children.  Sigh.  Life moves on.  The neighborhood is being morphed as younger families move into the houses, older folks move on to community living, and so on.  The cycle goes on, and this is no longer the "new" suburb that it was 40 odd years ago.

Anyway, Bill had to move along, and I still had a lot of those suckers to address.  Here's how I left it when I came inside to fix breakfast:

Much better.  I did not get the street side done, focusing instead on what I could do in the time allotted.  Oof!

Yesterday the trainer had me doing dead lifts, and we have been very careful about the form, to avoid back issues.  The stretching associated with yard work does not include the trainer warning you about your form.  So you have to be more conscious of it for yourself, as you get "old-er"!

Several folks have said they are anticipating a report on how I like the "Gold" features of Cronometer, as I had mentioned taking on the free week's trial.  So far, it is telling me some things I already either knew or suspected.  Here are my "progress toward targets" for one day, yesterday, followed by the ratios that are part of the evaluation.

I don't know how well these will show up.  The eight top circles represent, left to right:  

• All Targets
• Vitamins
• Minerals
• Electrolytes
• Immune Support
• Antioxidants
• Bone Health, and
• Metabolism Support

The things I knew/suspected were related to immune support, antioxidants, and bone health.

The good part of this is the insights when you click on the individual dial.  It tells you what nutrients are used in the rating, and how you did with them that day (or that day, so far, this is all enabled live, as you are entering today's food and supplements).  Similarly, if you click on an individual nutrient, it will tell you what food sources provide it.

Ratios between various nutrients are ALSO part of the scoring, and the ratios used are displayed, too.  In case the print is too small to see, even if you click on the picture, the four ratios shown here are Omega-6 : Omega-3, Zinc : Copper, Potassium : Sodium, and Calcium : Magnesium, because it's not just about getting "enough" of each of the nutrients, it's about the balance among them.

The analysis feature is retrospective, so you can go back and see how previous days' entries stack up!  So if you already have been using the free version for a while, all that data you entered can be looked at on day one of having the Gold "free trial" turned on. 

One of the first things I did looking at the first day's results was seeing how poorly I was doing with the Omega-6 : Omega-3 sheer values, I went back to days when I'd had, for example, salmon for dinner, or had the handful of walnuts with my morning snack.  No surprise, but I had better nutrition scores for immune support on those days.  

Yesterday, I added a potato to supper, in an attempt to make the potassium/sodium ratio better.  It improved, and the "Bone Health" score bumped up a bit.  One thing I noticed about the bone health was the inclusion of fluoride as part of the score, but I could not find a way to add my fluoride rinse into the equation.  So I'm probably at least a smidgeon better than it says.

So, bottom line, lots of new shiny numbers to look at.  Some insights into how much certain dietary changes might be able to help... and I have pretty much decided a week is not enough to learn everything I might want to learn.  I'm not ready to commit to a full year of this level of detailed watching, although that is the most cost-effective plan.  I'm going to go ahead and keep it and see what I learn on the monthly pay subscription, and whether it overwhelms me with TMI!  Then I'll either let it go, or switch to an annual plan.

Some people might be interested the Gold features for the purpose of timing their fasts.  The Gold features include timestamping when you enter foods.  Warning:  if you use the "copy/paste" function from another day, the timestamp comes with the copied food.  So if you're interested in the clock timing of your meals and snacks, enter them fresh!

That's about all I have to offer from my first three days of using the Gold features of Cronometer.  By the way, I mentioned it to my personal trainer yesterday, and he's hunting for something that gives him more nutritional information for health purposes, too.  So we'll see if he likes it!  Extra input... good, right?

Now, let's all get out there and live this one and only Wednesday, July 21, 2021 we'll ever get!  Make choices that support all those lovely bones, and immune systems, and so on... but also choices to feed your soul, and make your body actively happy!  Why?  Because we're worth it!  Each and every one of us!✨🎇💖❇  On or off SparkPeople... Spark on!