Health Hacking: Mexico City (Premium)

There are a few things I meant to discuss in What I Use: Mexico City (Premium) but didn’t. Key among them are some health-related topics.

So let’s dive in.
Altitude
Since it was a primary concern both before and during the trip, it’s weird that I didn’t discuss the effects of Mexico City’s high altitude in my previous post. Sorry about that.

The thing is, I have a history with high altitude. In February 2005, I visited Colorado and almost died from High Altitude Pulmonary Edema (HAPE). You can read all about that little escapade in That Time Google Saved My Life (Premium), but for purposes of this discussion, I need to be careful at high altitudes now and I’m supposed to take a drug called Diamox whenever I travel to a place that has an altitude of 10,000 feet or more. Mexico City is a bit under 7,400 feet, so I didn’t bother.

But it’s still breathtaking, literally. And since you’re required to wear a mask in this city at all times because of COVID-19, the effects of that altitude are exaggerated. Walking up a flight of stairs, even just walking, can be very tiring. And this is a weird thing to admit, but there were moments when I was struggling and getting worried about some kind of relapse when my wife would blurt out something like, “I think we need to rest,” and it was a bit reassuring. She’s in great shape, so it wasn’t just me.

Our general rule when visiting a city is to hit the ground running and we did that on this trip: Despite driving to and sitting in the airport for much of the morning and then flying for 5 hours last Thursday, we still walked 16,000 steps the day we arrived in Mexico City, and we walked 20,000 steps the next day. I suppose this is understandable in the sense that we’d not traveled internationally in almost two years and were excited to see a new place. But maybe we could have taken things more slowly. By Saturday, I was exhausted, and I ended up taking a two-hour nap during the day, and we only walked about 11,000 steps. Mexico City is gorgeous and there’s lots to see, but I had kind of run into a wall.
Heart rate
Feeling the exhaustion each day, and experiencing being winded during any uphill walks or stair climbing, I started keeping an eye on my Fitbit Versa 3, as the watch face that I use displays my heart rate alongside the time and some other metrics. I don’t actually do this at home. Fitbit tracks my resting heart rate, which is usually 66 beats per minute (bpm). And when I’m on an elliptical at the gym, I will sometimes look at it to see if I’m in an active zone, which for me can be between 115 and 135 bpm generally. And what I saw was concerning.

My heart rate while walking around was usually around 110 bpm, and if we were just sitting or resting---maybe eating lunch or drinking coffee---it would only settle down to about 80-85 bpm. Worse---to me---my resting heart rate rose every day we were there. It was 66 the day before we flew, as noted, so r...