Body Media Fit - Also known as the Body Bug

My armband arrived last Friday. After putzing around with it over the weekend- getting it set up, dealing with a Promo Code Snafu and getting it fully charged- I began seriously using it this previous Monday. If you haven't heard of these before, the contestants on The Biggest Loser have been wearing them for a few years now- except much bigger models. Now, they are smaller, and do all kinds of cool techie things like sync with your IPhone or Android- super neat.

So far, I have to say, I am really, really pleased with it- it is crazy cool. Its really small- a lot smaller than I thought it was going to be. When engaged inside the arm band, it's about the size of a pair of oversized sunglasses (as pictured here)

The actual monitoring device when taken out of the armband (for charging and syncing with the system) is super small and light- about the size equivalent to one sunglass lens (or slightly bigger than the apple on a MacBook)

You have to wear the arm-band, essentially 24 hours a day (they tell you to take it off to let your arm breathe for approx. one hour every day- but since it's not waterproof (the only downside so far- I wish they would make one that is!!) and my main workouts are in the water for an hour, that is the time that the armband is off.

You have to pay for a subscription to their website- I committed to a year's subscription, so they will charge my credit card $6.95 a month, after my 90 day free trial.

When you access the website for the first time, you will put in your height, weight, activity level, and what kind of goals you have (lose weight, maintain weight etc) If you select lose weight, it will ask you how many pounds you want to lose total, and how many pounds a week you want to lose (the max is 2lbs a week- what is doctor recommended as the maximum amount of weight to lose weekly and still be healthy) So, of course, I selected 2 pounds a week. According to that I need to have a 1000 Calorie deficit every day- which means, I have to burn 1000 more calories than I take it.

When you sync your armband (which I currently do every night, but I guess you can sync as infrequently as every 2 weeks- though I don't know why anyone would want to not sync it every day to get up to the minute information) it gives you a display that looks like this

From there you can see how many calories you have burned (along with the time you burned them and how many calories burned per minute)

a Breakdown of Calories Consumed

A chart of Calories Burned

As well as telling me how many steps Ive taken (yeah- I know.. pitiful but I work a desk job! What's a girl to do!)

And, shows me how well I'm sleeping (the light blue are times that I have woken up or drifted up from deep sleep- apparently I do it alot )

I can thank these guys for that, I'm sure...

When it was only one 90 pound dog in the bed, it was tolerable- everyone had their place. But now, the lab is getting older, and his joints are stiffer so instead of laying down, he flops down (usually on the small of my back- in the middle of the night) And the German Shepard doesn't like being ignored, so if the lab comes and sleeps in between us, he has to as well...
and then there's a bloody cat, who isn't happy unless he is sleeping underneath my chin, cuddled underneath my covers (which is totally my fault, I'll take the bullet on that one- when I had my first apartment, I lived alone and I had this crazy guy who lived 2 floors up- used to scare the heck out of me. Anyway, I would use my cat like a teddy bear, and cuddle him until I fell asleep.) Now 13 years later the little bastard still insists on sleeping like that. At least I know why I always wake up so flipping tired though.

I told my husband Im going to break out the air mattress one night and sleep in our office, just to see if my animal hypothesis is correct. He thinks I'm nuts. :)

But anyway, the armband is super cool. I only wish that I could export the details to my Facebook.com/seemillietri page instead of just my personal facebook page.

According to the website I am on a "weightloss trend" I made the mistake of weighing myself on Wednesday instead of the Sunday weigh in that I should be following..and it said I had a 4 pound gain. Now I should know better by now that after getting back on the workout wagon, that it's just fluid trapped in my muscles, but of course I got all upset and downtrodden (Im over it now, singing my heart out to an Indigo Girls CD for a half hour or so made me feel better)

So, now, the scale is locked away only to be brought out on Sunday mornings.

I'll keep you updated on my progress, and my continuing review of the Body Media system.

Til next time!

~Millie :)