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   aeva (aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Friday, 29-Mar-2024 18:46:44 JST aeva

   I got one of those heart rate monitors that is basically the world's worst strapless bra but with electrodes (it's a polaris H10 i'm being glib). The results logged during today's exercise are a bit 🤔🤔🤔

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     aeva (aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Friday, 29-Mar-2024 18:46:43 JST aeva

     in reply to

     the app asked for my gender and birthday, which I provided because I figured they were probably using it to set up bar graphs etc in addition to selling it to random corporations.

     then it asked height, with my current height already set, and then it asked for my weight with nearly my current weight set (off by 3 lbs)

     eerie. but I think these were just demographic averages. thus, I conclude this: according to the "Polar Beat" exercise app, I am a perfectly average 36 year old woman 😌

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     Tom Forsyth (tomf@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Friday, 29-Mar-2024 18:46:47 JST Tom Forsyth

     in reply to

     @aeva Statistically, this is the most probable outcome.

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     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Friday, 29-Mar-2024 18:46:49 JST clacke

     in reply to

     • Tom Forsyth

     @TomF From what I understand, BMI was a good enough measure as a proxy, on the population.

     Where it all went wrong was when people took that and used it on the individual level. Even at that point it could have been good as a heads-up or conversation starter, but again people took it further.

     @aeva

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     Tom Forsyth (tomf@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Friday, 29-Mar-2024 18:46:50 JST Tom Forsyth

     in reply to

     @aeva Anyway, you will be happy to hear that all my life I have been classified as rather overweight. Which makes me the perfectly average American. You know, even when I was winning gold medals. Because BMI is a totally bullshit measure.

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     Scott Michaud (scottmichaud@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Friday, 29-Mar-2024 18:46:55 JST Scott Michaud

     in reply to

     • Tom Forsyth

     @TomF @aeva Heh yeah. I had a friend in high school. His dad was a body builder and in the military, and he'd constantly get negative feedback about his BMI.

     It's like, look at him. Straight-up just look at him. He could bench press you. What are you even measuring?

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     aeva (aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Friday, 29-Mar-2024 18:46:59 JST aeva

     in reply to

     • Tom Forsyth

     @TomF I liked how I looked a lot better when I was a more boney, but I also like how now I can sit at a desk for 8 hours and only be in a little bit of pain and also have energy for Gains after work. It's a tough life being a bag of meat, with all of these meatly tradeoffs to make.

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   • Embed this notice
     Tom Forsyth (tomf@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Friday, 29-Mar-2024 18:47:00 JST Tom Forsyth

     in reply to

     @aeva Actual weight is somewhat arbitrary as long as you're in the ballpark. What really matters is whether that weight is useful or not. Just like cars, it's all about power-to-weight *ratio* :-)

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     aeva (aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Friday, 29-Mar-2024 18:47:01 JST aeva

     in reply to

     • Tom Forsyth

     @TomF I gained about 20 lbs since I started exercising again earlier in the year. I think this is a very good thing, because now I'm just a smidge heavier than where I want to be instead of grossly under.

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     Tom Forsyth (tomf@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Friday, 29-Mar-2024 18:47:05 JST Tom Forsyth

     in reply to

     @aeva Then there's people like me, who have gone from absurdly fit, to very slobby, to reasonably-above-average over about thirty years. In all that time, although my fitness varied hugely, my actual weight never budged by more than 1kg. Weight is just not a good measure in general.

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     aeva (aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Friday, 29-Mar-2024 18:47:09 JST aeva

     in reply to

     • sen

     @sen I'm inclined. I am tempted to write my own

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     sen (sen@gnulinux.social)'s status on Friday, 29-Mar-2024 18:47:15 JST sen

     in reply to

     @aeva IIRCC the polar stuff is actually pretty well documented and uses the appropriate GATT services for heartrate so you should theoretically be able to use some sort of FOSS alternative application if you are so inclined.

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     Tom Forsyth (tomf@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Saturday, 30-Mar-2024 09:23:32 JST Tom Forsyth

     in reply to

     • clacke

     @clacke @aeva Yes, I think it's probably a useful *statistical* tool.

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     John Kaniarz (jkaniarz@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Saturday, 30-Mar-2024 09:23:38 JST John Kaniarz

     in reply to

     • clacke
     • Tom Forsyth

     @TomF @aeva @clacke the biggest problem with BMI is that you divide by height squared. Human bodies don’t scale in two dimensions. (But not in three proportionately either)

     So if you’re shorter than average, it will suggest that you’re under weight. And if you’re taller than average then it will say that you’re overweight.

     An exponent of 2.3 would fit the data better but that’s just a patch on a broken system.

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