Los Angeles, CA Quantified Self Meetup on 06/21/12 My Show & Tell talk sharing my journey and discoveries of self-tracking data I've been collecting for over 2 years.

1. LOS ANGELES QS MEETUP
M Y D ATA D I S C O V E R Y
J U N 2 1 S T, 2 0 1 2
Eric Blue
Blog: http://eric-blue.com
Twitter: @ericblue

2. MY QS DATA DISCOVERY
LESSONS LEARNED SO FAR
Started self-tracking in early 2010
 Lots of gadgets and software
 Off the shelf and home-brewed
 Lots of data collected
 Now moving from massive collection to discovery
My motivation for tracking?
 Recurring lower-back injury was majorly impacting my activity
 Get back to higher level of activity and fitness
 Curiosity – no immediate questions – see patterns over long periods of time
What have I learned?
 Some meta-data about my tracking – Meta Quantified Self
 Interesting discoveries
 Practical advice for people getting started
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3. CORE GADGETS + APPS
My gadgets
 Activity: FitBit
 Weight + Blood Pressure: Withings
 (scale + HRM)
 Sleep: Zeo
 Heart Rate: Garmin FR60 heart rate monitor
 Location: GPS (Qstarz)
 Mental Focus: NeuroSky
Applications
 iFitness - iPhone
 TRAQS.me
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4. META QUANTIFIED SELF – DATA ABOUT DATA
Stat Fact
Total hours spent tracking 20,606.40 hours
(since 2/13/2010)
Total steps recorded 231,616 steps
Total GPS points (lat/long) 1.94 million points
Heart beats recorded 109,230 beats
Total burned calories 248,385 records
recorded
Total sleep recorded 414,641 sleep points
Total data saved 218.89 MB
Frequency of QS gadget .5 gadgets / month 
purchase
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5. MY ORIGINAL IDEA ABOUT SELF-TRACKING
+
=
AND (POOF) MAGIC HAPPENS
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6. MY ORIGINAL IDEA ABOUT SELF-TRACKING
(FANTASY)
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7. MY ORIGINAL IDEA ABOUT SELF-TRACKING
(REALITY)
NO SPARTAN YET, BUT A WORK IN PROGRESS 
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8. SELF-TRACKING STATUS UPDATE – 6/21/2012
Stat Start Current Delta
Total weight (lbs) 205.3 190.2 -15.1lbs
(since 2/13/2010)
Body fat % 23% 17.2% - 5.8%
Muscle (lbs) 158.08 157.73 - 0.35 lbs
Fat (lbs) 47.22 32.77 - 14.45 lbs
Strength (max 205lbs 267lbs 30.24% increase
bench)
Total back injury 0 5 5 setbacks
flair ups
Days since last - - 292 days
major flair up
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9. LESSONS LEARNED
Lesson 1 – Progress is NOT linear
 There will be set backs
 Injury can happen, there will be lack of motivation but keep at it
 Push yourself, but also be kind to yourself
Lesson 2 – Set realistic goals
 Rome (or better yet, a Spartan) wasn’t built in a day
 Don’t go overboard on tracking – start small, be pragmatic
Lesson 3 – Visualizing data in different ways can bring insight
 Spreadsheets and charts are effective but can be boring
 Experiment with different ways to visualize data and find patterns
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10. INTERESTING STATS & VISUALIZATIONS – [1]
This is what enduring back pain and a major spasm looks like at night
(9/24/2010)
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11. INTERESTING STATS & VISUALIZATIONS – [2]
Friday is my most active day of the week; Monday I’m lazy
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12. INTERESTING STATS & VISUALIZATIONS – [3]
Set a goal everyday and exceed it; skipping a day means you may have to
make it up!
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13. INTERESTING STATS & VISUALIZATIONS – [4]
Adding some color shows patterns on larger volumes of data
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14. INTERESTING STATS & VISUALIZATIONS – [5]
My hourly activity as a heatmap
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15. INTERESTING STATS & VISUALIZATIONS – [6]
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16. INTERESTING STATS & VISUALIZATIONS – [7]
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17. INTERESTING STATS & VISUALIZATIONS – [8]
My morning walks
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18. INTERESTING STATS & VISUALIZATIONS – [9]
My morning walks – frequency & intensity
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19. INTERESTING STATS & VISUALIZATIONS – [10]
Cities I’ve visited order by date; My home-brewed Google Latitude
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20. INTERESTING STATS & VISUALIZATIONS – [11]
Remember, graphs aren’t (always) reality. Focus on feeling good/fit and
being happy. Have a slice of pie once in a while!
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21. WHERE TO FIND MORE?
The Quantified Self Site
 http://quantifiedself.com/
QS Los Angeles Meetup
 http://www.meetup.com/QuantifiedSelfLA/
QS Los Angeles Wiki
 http://quantifiedselfla.wikispaces.com/
My Blog – Quantified Self Category
 http://eric-blue.com/category/quantified-self/
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