Can BodyMedia Fit be inaccurate?

doctorandrew

I am 272 lbs with 44.4% bodyfat. According to the Cunningham Formula for BMR I should be burning around 3018 and that includes my activity level, which I started p90x last week. I started to wear the body media this morning when I woke up around 8:30am. As of now it's 2:02pm and I am at 4051 calories burned, 1:56 moderate activity, and 13520 steps (I barely walked today, no way its that high). I did do p90x Kenpo X this morning. If this really is the amount of calories I am burning, that means I need to be eating a WHOLE lot more than I already am. I just figured out my diet early this week and I already feel like I'm eating way too much. This is on a whole new level.

sethkm

I've been using BodyMedia Fit for about a year now. Most of the times when the calories/steps have been inflated for me it was due to wearing the sensor while driving. Definitely check the Activity Manager and look at the graph under calories burned and see if there are strange spikes that don't coordinate with when you were moving (likewise the graph under steps taken and activity). Only other thing I can think of is that you maybe the Physical Activity Levels METs slider is off under the settings.

Hope this helps. I agree that number of calories burned seems excessive. That being said, my "Personal Bests" include a day in which I burned 6313 calories, but I weigh more than you and completed a half-marathon that day. So, that kind of calorie level isn't out of the question, but it seems crazy high given your activity for the day.

Hope this helps,
sethkm

doctorandrew

I guess I should take it off before I drive then, but for now I'll eat according to the Cunningham formula.

sethkm

Depends on clothing, but one thing I often do is keep the sensor on, but then flip it upside down while driving.

I have found the sensor to be a great motivator; hope you find it to be as rewarding.

Regards,
sethkm

JhKd

If you just started wearing it this morning, it estimates all of the time that you weren't wearing it yet. I found that on day 1 it estimated it really high. As time goes on, this estimate gets more accurate. I think my day 1 also showed a very large count to begin with. Personally I haven't noticed any weird readings from wearing it while driving on mine or my wife's.

I've been wearing mine for about 12 days now. I'm happy with it. Although I can already see that on workout days I average 3800-4100 calories and non-workout days I'm about 3400-3500. Not sure how much longer I really need it, but as others said it is a great motivator to go out and walk the shop while I'm at work if there's nothing else to do.

Jess5825

Did you just get the BMF? I noticed (after I got a new one because my original broke) that the first few days, it was very inaccurate. Saying I was doing vigorous activity when I was at work. Which I assure you, I was not. This lasted a couple days, before it seemed to adjust itself and it became more accurate.

sethkm

Interesting. I wonder if the driving problem that I've had is related to the poor roads around where I live. Guessing all the bumps make the BMF register exercise for me..l