How Smart Devices Helped Me Discover Hidden Health Benefits

The humble bathroom scale is by far the most frustrating of all fitness devices. No, I’m not just saying that because I’m now middle-aged and have discovered that they’re not as flattering as they used to be. They deliver on their core promise of providing me with an accurate assessment of my weight—something that can’t be said for sauna suits, TightMasters, ab stimulators, and other useless devices that clutter the health and wellness space.

No, bathroom scales are frustrating because by default they reduce something as complex and multi-faceted as a person’s health to a single number, which is not always the best indicator of that health.

I can already hear the counterarguments, so let’s get them out of the way. Yes, being overweight is linked to health problems like heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Yes, being overweight can indicate unhealthy lifestyle habits. And yes, we all want to look good in a bathing suit.

That said, a true health assessment must consider more than just body weight. You must consider cholesterol levels, blood pressure, daily activity, resting heart rate, recovery heart rate, relationship to stress, and more. All of these can pose challenges to health, regardless of a slim figure. Worse, our cultural tunnel vision about weight can lead people to adopt unhealthy weight management practices.

So starting around my 40th birthday, I attached myself to a series of devices to monitor my health in every way possible for 30 days. I created charts and graphs for my heart rate, my breathing rate, my metabolic rate—all the metrics. I counted my steps, my calories, my snoring. And yes, I weighed myself every morning. All to see if better data could help me live healthier. Here’s what that looked like.

Every breath you take

According to Matthieu Menanteau, product manager at Withings, a French consumer electronics company, there are three best practices to follow when using home health devices. First, be consistent and follow recommended practices. Second, engage with the app and read the supporting information to understand the data collected. And finally, stay motivated. This can include support from friends and family, as well as using the educational content in the app.

With these guidelines in mind, I woke up every morning and immediately scanned myself with the Withings Body Scan.* Yes, it’s a “bathroom scale,” but the Body Scan analyzes much more than just my weight.

An extendable bar attached to the scale sends (thankfully unnoticeable) electrical impulses through my body. These impulses allow the Body Scan to map my BMI, electrodermal activity (EDA, supposedly a measure of stress), and electrocardiogram (EKG, a measure of heart health). It even analyzes my body’s fat and muscle composition, and maps Where in my body I’m building muscle and losing fat – or vice versa, depending on how I spent my weekend.

Then I strapped the Fitbit Charge 6 to my wrist for the day. It allowed me to calculate steps taken, calories burned, oxygen saturation, respiratory rate, and heart rate. I used another app, Health Connect, to share data between the Withings and Fitbit apps—which worked for the most part, although sometimes the two apps didn’t play well together.

Finally, in the evening, I used the Withings Sleep Analyzer to monitor my sleep patterns. The analyzer is a pad that you place under your mattress. After a few nights of adjusting the pad to get more accurate readings, I went to bed and woke up with a “sleep quality score,” which detailed the duration, regularity, and depth of my sleep, as well as an estimate of the time spent in different sleep stages.

And that’s it! It turns out that trying to connect every waking and waking minute of my day to a health tracker was incredibly easy. Logging into the various apps was the biggest pain, and after a short period of adaptation, the devices blended invisibly into my daily routine. Wake up, stand on the Body Scan for two minutes, check the charts, put on my Fitbit, and that’s it.

As you all probably guessed, the challenge was what happened next.

But why?

Despite my earlier rant, I admit that my initial goal was to shed a few pounds that were stubbornly hanging around my midsection. But after a few days of recording my biometrics, I changed course.

The Body Scan showed that my visceral fat—the really bad kind—was in the normal range. My overall fat mass was low for a man my age, and my muscle mass was trending toward the middle of the bell curve. Sure, I’d still like to pose for an impressive “after” photo someday—not to mention have the confidence to do it—but my data showed that losing those pounds would do more for my image than my physical health.

Where I really needed to chill was chilling out. I was stressed out, and my sleep charts were a horrendous mess. Sure, I was technically According to my sleep analyzer, I sleep an average of 6-7 hours, but the device also informed me that my sleep is light and the breaks are regular.

Well, I’ve never been a morning person, but I’ve recently discovered that the early hours of the day are a special kind of hell. I struggle to get up, I’m groggy until my second cup of coffee, and I end up arriving at work later than I’d like—even though my commute is no further than my apartment. My EDA scans also suggested that I was stressed out a few days a week, no doubt fueled in large part by my caffeine intake.

So I decided to improve the quality of my sleep. While we don’t have much control over how deep we sleep, the information on the Withings app and online has given me insight into how I can improve my sleep hygiene to increase my chances of getting a better night’s sleep.

The new plan for a month of healthier living included:

• First, set a regular bedtime.
• Second, create a weekly exercise plan and start following it.
• Third, I will limit my daily caffeine intake and weekly alcohol intake.
• Finally, make another attempt to develop the habit of mindfulness.

With that plan in hand, I spent the next few weeks crushing it…some days. Others were less successful. Afternoon runs sometimes turned into awkward, sweaty walks. I “lost track” how much more coffee I drank than I’d like to admit. And right at the end, I came down with the worst flu I’d had in half a decade, which didn’t do my circadian rhythm any favors.

Regardless, I managed to complete my little experiment on myself, and the results were surprising — though not when it came to my sleep.

Results

I won’t lie: 30 days in and I still have trouble going to sleep. I’m a father, a puppy owner, and a nocturnal wanderer, so my plan for a healthier life has been a real challenge. But I’m seeing some progress. I’m waking up earlier and enjoying my mornings more than I have in a long time. Given my history, I’ll take it and hope to continue to make progress in the coming months.

I was surprised how gaining a more holistic view of my daily health and inner activity changed my habits in ways I hadn’t planned.

For example, at first I didn’t care how many steps I took in a day, but then my wife and I started comparing notes. Those notes soon became scores. Those scores fueled a friendly competition. Suddenly we were pushing ourselves to exercise a little more every day to achieve victory that week (with love and kindness, of course). That in turn made me start paying more attention to my heart rate and started challenging myself to improve it, too.

By finding these small, previously hidden daily wins, I was able to maintain momentum even when my larger goals fell behind. The apps also recorded these wins in helpful charts and graphs, which motivated me even more. In fact, the Body Scan showed that I had lost some body fat and gained muscle. Not enough for a sexy after photo (sorry). I’m still the kind of guy who likes a before photo, but I’m also not the kind of guy who ignores a helpful trend line.

The only real downside was the mindfulness. While I’m well aware of the benefits, I can’t stick to any meditation routine for very long. I’ve always found the practice more stressful than calming, and this was no different. But as Menanteau noted in our email exchange, “Be patient with the process. Health changes take time, but with consistent use and the right advice, you can make a difference.”

So I’ll stick with it. Better luck next time, right?

Finding hidden winnings

To be clear, I’m not claiming to have discovered the secret to keeping your weight off forever or living healthy until you’re 120. Hell, I’m not even saying you should buy every medical device I’ve ever used or track every minute of your life.

Health trackers can be expensive and not everyone can afford. The device you choose (if any) will largely depend on you and your health goals. If you’re in the market, Menanteau recommends looking for a device that meets your needs, is easy to use, has a great app, and supports your unique health journey.

Even with the right device, metrics won’t motivate everyone equally. Some people will find such revealing data unsettling; others may become unhealthily obsessed with “winning” the fitness game. And most importantly, no home-care device can offer a diagnosis or replace a good relationship with a compassionate, caring primary care physician (though I plan to take my data with me to my next checkup).

My experiment on myself was simply to see how these devices support mental play as well as the physical benefits of healthier living. In this regard, they can be helpful by revealing the many ways we unconsciously support our health. I think recognizing these small victories will help many people maintain their momentum and enthusiasm. I kept trying to improve what I could, and was happy to discover unexpected benefits wherever I could.

Because ultimately, no one’s long-term health is determined by a mind-blowing 30-day transformation, extreme diet, or brutal exercise plan. It’s found in those small successes that encourage lifelong healthy habits. And that simply can’t be measured on a bathroom scale.

As Menanteau told me, “Ultimately, understanding your health is part of everyday life.”

Author’s note: Withings provided Freethink with its body scanner and sleep analyzer free of charge for the purposes of this article.