46, stalled since August, saying hi

Morning or all-day average? My drop was only 4 bpm until I standardized on waking measurements.

Standardizing matters. I log before getting out of bed. Caffeine and bad dreams wreck the trend.

I’d track step consistency before HRV. My HRV bounced 18–70 ms with zero real changes; steps predicted my resting HR better.

Fasting insulin would be my pick if you want one lab. It caught my n=1 trend when CRP was already low.

Fasting insulin can swing with sleep and stress too. I’d rather see a 2-week CGM average if you can borrow one.

Borrowing a CGM taught me more than HRV ever did. My post-lunch spikes fell after I started walking 10 min, but I can’t prove it wasn’t the sleep change.

Sleep is the boring lever nobody wants to hear. 6.5 to 7.5 hrs would move my RHR more than any supplement.

I’ve done the overthinking route and the opposite. For me, the useful trio was morning RHR, sleep duration, and a simple weekly zone 2 watt check. HRV looked impressive on a graph but sent me chasing ghosts whenever I had late meals or two drinks. Fasting insulin is worth one baseline if you’re curious, but I wouldn’t retest it every month. Your CRP and RHR changes are already a strong intro story. If I were you, I’d pick one metric, run it for 8 weeks, and ignore the rest. Otherwise every forum thread becomes a new experiment.

I’d second the 8-week single-metric idea. I chased HRV, CGM, and VO2 at once and learned nothing except that I hate finger sticks.