A New Gadget!
I love gadgetry. I’m one of those weird people who can sit around and watch infomercials and really and truly believe they’ll do everything they say they will. Luckily, I have the Internet and lots of reviews to be the voice of reason, so I stop short of calling the 1-800 number.
The best kind of gadgetry though, is any kind that can motivate me to stick to my diet and fitness goals. A LOOOOONG time ago, Oprah had this hi-tech pedometer thing. It was SO cool. You clipped a small oval shaped disc to your belt and then at the end of the day you put it in a dock that connected to the internet via a telephone line. (I said a long time ago.) I loved that thing! I was SO driven to get over 10,000 steps. And then, the company went belly up, the website closed, and I was stuck with a $120 piece of plastic.
Well, my new obsession is the Body Bugg. I figured I “needed” it to help motivate me now that swimming is out of the picture. If you have ever watched The Biggest Loser, it is the device you see them wearing on their arm.
Here’s a blurb from their website:
The bodybugg® is the most accurate device on the market today for measuring calorie expenditure outside of a clinical setting.
It utilizes a patented process for interpreting calorie burn called “sensor fusion” developed by BodyMedia, Inc. This process involves collecting a range of body-data using multiple physiological sensors instead of a single sensor, which is what other calorie estimation devices such as pedometers and heart rate monitors rely on. It’s this multi-sensor approach that enables bodybugg® to “see” the wearer’s context (whether they are sitting, sleeping, jogging, walking, etc.) that makes bodybugg® such a reliably accurate device for calorie expenditure estimation.
My initial impressions are mixed. The good stuff first:
- It has REALLY opened my eyes to how sedentary I am on any given day.
- It has motivated me to move more, even in small ways.
- It’s fun.
- It has served as great accountability to my calorie intake
- It motivates me to get more structured exercise in
Now, the not so good stuff:
- It isn’t water-proof, and so if I do ever return to swimming, I couldn’t use it for that
- The food tracking portion of the website, BLOWS! I belong to a FREE site, Sparkpeople.com, and their site is head and shoulders above this one, which I pay for. Weight Watcher’s food tracking database was also much more comprehensive and user friendly.
- It was advertised as Mac compatible, but only if you have a new Mac, and I failed to read the fine print.
- The strap that you wear it with is somewhat uncomfortable. I have super fat arms, and well, it just isn’t pretty.
I have a “coaching” session on Friday with a Body Bugg representative, in addition to my first weigh in since using the product, so I’ll update further later.
sounds cool, in a techy sort of way!