Watching the watch

A month after I had met my friend Balwant Sinha and gained a useless understanding of measuring sleep, I ran into him at the mall.

“Got to show you this!” he said briskly, holding up a shopping bag. “Come, let’s have coffee.”

“Is it another device to measure sleep?” I asked with some foreboding when we had sat down.

“No! But it measures stuff that will help me sleep better. Since Monday I’ve slept only an average of 5 hours 23 minutes each night – that’s 5.3833 hours, if you prefer irrational numbers – against my target of 6 hours. And you recall my ZQ target, right?”

“No. In fact I don’t recall what ZQ is.”

“I told you last time,” said Sinha, sounding annoyed. “It’s a single sleep measure capturing the positives (REM and deep sleep) and the negatives (sleep disruptions). I’m scoring 36% against my target of 65%. And I’m not able to lift my game.”

“Talking about lifting the game,” I said, trying to change the topic, “did you see how Chennai Super Kings played against Knight Riders?”

“Exercising helps in sleeping,” he said, ignoring my intervention. “So I started running after dinner. But it worsened things: my average ZQ dropped 7%! Then further research revealed that one should exercise at least six hours before bedtime. In the immediate period after exercise your metabolism is quicker and you’re more alert, energetic and not sleepy.”

“Dhoni, they say, does his workout in the early afternoon.” I tried a diversion again. “In last night’s…”

“I too have started exercising in the afternoon,” said Sinha. “But I also learnt that overdoing exercise can worsen the quality of your sleep.”

“Cut down your exercise regimen!” I said. “On Sundays, Dhoni…”

“But what to cut?” asked Sinha.

“I don’t know. Run one kilometre less,” I suggested.

“Nonsense! That’s arbitrary and unscientific. I need an exercise target, measure where I am against it and then adjust performance.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he was complicating something simple like running and, simultaneously, talking drivel.

He continued: “My objectives for running are to (1) improve ZQ performance to 65% and (2) lose 3.6 kilograms over the next 6 weeks.”

“Lose weight?! You?!” Sinha was a fit athlete with flat stomach, bulging biceps and panther-like court coverage, the envy of our tennis circle of middle-aged men, carrying podgy paunches and breathing laboriously.

“Yes!” he said. “My BMI (body mass index) is the problem. I need to bring it down from 22.8 to 21.7, so that it’s exactly in the middle of the recommended range (18.5 to 24.9). To do that, I need to lose 3.6 kilograms at the rate of 600 grams per week.”

“Or 86 grams a day.” I said sarcastically.

“Exactly!” Sinha said with delight. “But the variation in the body’s water retention everyday causes the daily statistic to fluctuate. So I measure my weight every Friday, taking the average of three measurements at 9 am, 3 pm and 9 pm. What say?”

I didn’t know what to say; so I didn’t say it. But I didn’t need to: he was happy to continue.

“Taking into account my age, height and weight, and the prevailing temperature and humidity, my goal is to consume 2,500 calories of food (obviously I measure everything I eat for calorie-content) and burn 625 calories through exercise. Then my net calorie intake of 1,875 calories will help me shed 600 grams a week. Following me so far?”

I nodded dully.

“Here’s the exciting part,” he said (but my pulse did not race). “To achieve 65% ZQ sleep, I need to burn those 625 calories without my heart rate going above 80% of its maximum capacity. Today, I’m guessing that I’m going above this, but from tomorrow I stop guessing.”

He took out a sleek-looking black watch from his shopping bag.

“Meet the Polar M400 watch,” he said, caressing the device lovingly. “It measures time and distance using GPS and, through sophisticated algorithms, tells me how many calories I’m burning. It also measures my heart rate using this special sensor attached to my chest.” He showed me a black thingummy with a strap. “There are five heart rate zones: very light, where the heart beats at about half its maximum rate; light; moderate; high; and finally very high, where the heart beats at almost its maximum rate. Tomorrow, I’ll set my target in the middle zone, ensuring my heart rate doesn’t go beyond 80% of its maximum rate; then I’ll run, watching my watch, and stop when I’ve burnt exactly 675 calories. This way I’ll achieve both my goals – weight loss and getting good sleep. Brilliant, right?”

I had not been battered with so much information in one lecture, nor experienced this dull lassitude, since my engineering college days several years ago.

“I have another idea,” I said, stifling a yawn. “Simply record what you’ve been saying to me for the last half an hour. Every night in bed, play the recording to yourself. You’ll go to sleep very soon and your ZQ will hit new heights.”