Resting Heart Rate of 39 - How I Got Here
My physical, and mental, health journey is a long story for another day. Today, though, I’m proud to have reached a new milestone: having a 21-day average of a 39 bpm (beats per minute) resting heart rate ♥️ 💓.
Although this isn’t the only indicator of good health, it is one that:
- Has proven to be a leading indicator of good health in the majority of people (not everyone)
- Is the easiest to track on a day to day basis - hello wristwatches! This gives me the opportunity to experiment and watch the data in real-time.
Why?
I’ve always been intrigued with playing with my body’s reaction to changes in my environment, such as:
- Diet: I’ve tried all the diets from keto, to low carb, to vegetarian, to pescatarian
- Exercise: I’ve tried high intensity workouts for 10 mins/day, to doing an Ironman.
- Sleep: I’ve tried polyphasic sleep cycles, 6 hours of sleep, 10 hours of sleep
I think one of my drivers is general curiosity - “What will happen if I do X vs Y?”, but I believe the main driver is that I feel better. I have more energy, my mental health is stronger, and life is generally more happy. The days I eat like crap (which I do often!), don’t workout, or get a bad night sleep, are the days I feel depressed, anxious, hopeless. So, I have directly correlated: good health makes me feel happier!
This is where I think some people get it wrong: they assume healthy living is a means to live longer. Sure, I would love to live longer, but that’s too long-term of a goal to work on. Instead, I’ve observed that I am happier, today, when I am living healthy. I can only speak for myself, but of course I want to be happier!
Besides an average increase in my happiness, other day to day benefits occur in me:
- I have more energy - 12 hour work days can be a breeze when I’m at my healthiest habits
- I’m more compassionate with others (likely due to the fact I’m happier myself), affecting my relationships positively.
- I’m more motivated to accomplish my goals in life
What?
A resting heart rate (RHR) on my Garmin watch is measured when I’m sleeping, as that is when the body is most at “rest”. Some argue that sleeping shouldn’t be counted, but whatever, it’s all relative numbers. Here’s my 1-year chart:
As you’ll notice, throughout the past 12 months, I have an average of 42 bpm (beats per minute). Sometimes I’d get to 39, but never consistently for so long. The achievement may seem trivial going from 42 to 39, but that’s 10% (!) fewer heartbeats that my body needs to function properly, which is not so trivial!
But the goal itself wasn’t the reason, instead it all comes back to the ‘Why’ - my life is better when I’m optimizing my health.
How?
It was a long journey getting here, but what has been working the best for the past 2 months that earned me that extra 10% were ideas inspired from the book: Lifespan: Why We Age―and Why We Don't Have To
The book was quite dense, bringing me back to my high school biology classes, but it was fun to stimulate that part of my brain again. After getting through the science part (which was really compelling), he got to the practical tips to help you not only live longer, but have more years of happiness and high energy, which spoke to my Why!
His list was long, so I’ll talk about the points I focused on that made the greatest difference for me in the past months:
- Intermittent fasting: he talks about the science of fasting and why it’s good for us. I’m not much of a researcher myself, but rather an experimenter, so I took his word for it and started trying! I now skip lunch 1-3 times a week and can greatly notice the effects on my energy levels when doing so. I’m more alert, have more energy from morning till evening, and appreciate the discipline required for me to not give in to my body demanding food.
- 95% Vegetarian: he recommends being 100% vegetarian, although says that a little bit of meat isn’t the end of the world. I don’t want to have to worry about the nutrients I may be missing if I don’t eat meat, so I now will eat typically meat for just 1 or 2 meals a week during dinner, and usually that is only fish. The rest of my meals have greatly changed to be mostly yummy salads with lots of fruits and vegetables.
- Eliminate the sugar-spiking carbs: He doesn’t talk about this much, but in other books I’ve read I also subscribe to the idea that refined carbs - breads, pastas, rice, etc - are not good for our blood sugar levels. I’ve been focusing on this a lot lately and have noticed a great difference in my energy by removing these from my diet (I kid you not: I’m typing this sentence after I just enjoyed half a pizza with my girlfriend. Perfection is not the goal 🙂)
These are new changes to my health on top of my existing foundation of:
- Exercise: I workout 4-6 times a week, training for running or triathlon races. Approximately ~5 hours/week of training that breaks a sweat, nothing super intense.
- Diet: I avoid junk food as much as I can. Chocolate is my achilles heel though 🙈.
- Sleep: I insist on getting 8 hours of sleep. It’s not perfect, but I notice a big difference between 7.5 and 8.
Next?
As you can see in my chart, the average is going up again after a couple weeks traveling. I’ll get back on the routine soon enough 🙂. At the end of the day though it’s all one big experiment worth enjoying!
- Have any questions? Be sure to Contact Me - I love chatting about these things!
- Have any thoughts to share? Comment below.
- Interested to read more? Be sure to subscribe - I promise, I hate spam as much as you do.
- Struggling with your weight or activity goals? This is a great passion of mine, and I would love to help in any way I can. Seriously - reach out to me and I’d really enjoy chatting with you about your goals.