Cardio machines are so inaccurate. Photo proof!

monica2434

they're all just estimations, whether it's your band or the machine. listen to your body and watch the scale.. you'll see where your calories are going.

I couldn't AGREE more................

I couldn't agree LESS........

I was morbidly obese for the first 19 years of my life. Then I lost 80lbs pretty fast, then gained 60, then lost 60... My body is all screwed up, and for the most part, I don't eat enough anymore - and that's what feels natural to me now. It's not natural, it's adaptation, and my body has adapted to so many drastically different lifestyles, it's totally screwed up and I don't even know what normal was. I never had a chance to be normal (my ENTIRE family is super fat, diabetic, riddled with heart disease and early death), and I learned all the wrong things. I have done changing my life for me, but spending more than 75% of my life on the right path (and all of my childhood learning years) has left my body and mind in need of major repair.

There's an obesity epidemic out there that most people are aware of - that's because people are doing what comes naturally to them and it's making them fat. I never INTENDED on getting obese or unhealthy, but I was never taught differently, so I did was came naturally.

The biggest point: WE ARE ALL DIFFERENT and we all need different things. What you need and what works for you, is based on YOU. What WORKED for me no longer works for me, and what I need is based on ME.

I'm VERY sorry for your upbringing.............but that was MY opinion on the matter...............and you are RIGHT.........everyone is different and require different needs.............But as for me, when I ate in excess and ate all the wrong things during the last 2 years of my life and balloned to 231lbs...........I KNEW they weren't healthy at that time............so NOW I'm doing something about it.

musiche

they're all just estimations, whether it's your band or the machine. listen to your body and watch the scale.. you'll see where your calories are going.

I couldn't AGREE more................

I couldn't agree LESS........

I was morbidly obese for the first 19 years of my life. Then I lost 80lbs pretty fast, then gained 60, then lost 60... My body is all screwed up, and for the most part, I don't eat enough anymore - and that's what feels natural to me now. It's not natural, it's adaptation, and my body has adapted to so many drastically different lifestyles, it's totally screwed up and I don't even know what normal was. I never had a chance to be normal (my ENTIRE family is super fat, diabetic, riddled with heart disease and early death), and I learned all the wrong things. I have done changing my life for me, but spending more than 75% of my life on the right path (and all of my childhood learning years) has left my body and mind in need of major repair.

There's an obesity epidemic out there that most people are aware of - that's because people are doing what comes naturally to them and it's making them fat. I never INTENDED on getting obese or unhealthy, but I was never taught differently, so I did was came naturally.

The biggest point: WE ARE ALL DIFFERENT and we all need different things. What you need and what works for you, is based on YOU. What WORKED for me no longer works for me, and what I need is based on ME.

I'm VERY sorry for your upbringing.............but that was MY opinion on the matter...............and you are RIGHT.........everyone is different and require different needs.............But as for me, when I ate in excess and ate all the wrong things during the last 2 years of my life and balloned to 231lbs...........I KNEW they weren't healthy at that time............so NOW I'm doing something about it.

Good for you

I wasn't looking for sympathy.... I was just saying that 'listening to your body' and 'watching the scale' no longer works for me because I've changed so much from the heart-attack-waiting-to-happen that I was, and my body is in rebellion. I lost 80 lbs, plateaued for months, then ate less, the scale still didn't move, ate even less, scale didn't move. Ate more, no movement, ate a little more... Nada. Patience only lasts so long, and 3 years is long enough, lol. When I got the armband, I learned I was eating 1600cal and burning 3200 on average. I had no idea my deficit was that big. I LIVE in starvation mode naturally, comfortably and efficiently. That's not natural at all. Thank goodness I got the armband because listening to my messed up body, I just wasn't getting/doing enough.

musiche

http://www.bodymedia.com/

FYI

Phaedra2014

I base my workouts on time and amount of sweat lost:laugh:

gregpack

I've used the body media device for a two and three week stretch. My former gym rents them out to clients. They are useful, but after a few weeks I gathered most of the data I needed. They estimated my average caloric burn at 3400 a day. It must be close because at that intake I maintain my weight. They require a subscription to continue to work.

vfnmoody

I tried their web page but could not get on without tell them what type of currency I was going to pay them with so I tried Google
and this is what I found.

Those sensors include:

a thermometer
an accelerometer
a galvanic skin response sensor

Each of these sensors gathers data that feed into algorithms -- sets of mathematical instructions -- when you sync your device with a computer.
So what does each sensor actually do? The thermometer is the simplest of the three -- it measures your body's temperature. It keeps track of when your muscles get warm and when they cool down again. As we expend energy by moving around, not all of that energy comes out in the form of physical work. We lose some energy in the form of heat. By measuring the amount of heat generated and lost by our muscles, the FIT can begin to create a picture of how active we are.

The accelerometer's job is to detect changes in velocity. Velocity has two factors: speed and direction. As you move around, the FIT's accelerometer detects changes in your movements.

The data from the accelerometer helps the BodyMedia system keep track of how many steps you take throughout the day. The motions you make while walking are different from those you make while jogging or running. The data the sensor gathers reflects these changes and the BodyMedia algorithms crunch the numbers to figure out how many steps you've taken that day.

The galvanic skin response sensor has the grossest job -- it tracks how much you sweat. Two stainless steel pads on the FIT sensor stay in contact with your skin. These two pads send a tiny electric charge that uses your skin to complete the circuit. As you sweat, your skin's ability to conduct electricity improves. The sensors measure the changes in the strength of the electric signal over time. If the signal remains strong for a long time it indicates that you're staying active and probably need a shower.
The sensor sends all the collected data over for processing. BodyMedia's online Activity Manager takes the data and analyzes it using complex algorithms. The algorithms have a foundation in years of scientific study focusing on how various activity levels relate to caloric burn.
One important thing to note, though, is that the Activity Manager requires a subscription to use.

Based on your activity levels, including the intensity and duration of your activities, it generates information that's meaningful to you. This includes everything from how many steps you've taken that day to an estimation of the number of calories you've burned.

The software also breaks down your activity into types. If you spend all day walking around at a gentle pace the software will reflect that. But if you've been pushing yourself hard with intense workouts your profile will indicate that in your record.

BodyMedia's Activity Manager includes a food diary feature that lets you keep track of everything you eat. You just have to enter information about what -- and how much -- you've had to eat for each meal.

In this way, the software can plot how many calories you've burned against how many you're taking in. If there's a deficit of calories, you're on the way to losing weight! But if you're consuming more than you're burning, you'll need to make some changes if weight loss is your ultimate goal.

I never found a link that spoke to the HRM but that would be handy. It sounds like it would be a great product. every one that I found that reviewed it seemed to think it was kind of flaky for them to charge a monthly fee for software use.

mrsimon302

i suppose i should have specified a scale that measures your % body fat as well as your weight, my apologies.

Tony_Brewski

And I have a study that says 97.642% of all studies are 50% accurate 73.44444% of the time as well.

meshashesha2012

the only time the machine and my HRM have sort of been in agreement is when i would do sprint hiits on the treadmill. otherwise, the calorie burn was always much greater on the machine than on my HRM. and that's even if i fed in all the righ age, height and weight info.

pamtram

And I have a study that says 97.642% of all studies are 50% accurate 73.44444% of the time as well.

Haha

DavPul

Well, there it is...

I got my BodyMedia armband a couple of months ago and I finally see how inflated the calorie burns are on cardio machines... After only half an hour it's more than 100 calories over my actual burn. The armband measures my caloric burn through a few different sensors and is considered to be the most accurate on the market with 95% accuracy.

My armband is feeding my calorie burn into my iPod (265 calories burned in 32 minutes) and the cross ramp (elliptical of sorts) is telling me I burned 376 calories.

Armbands are so worth it!

I don't mean to rabble rouse, but doesn't this only prove that the two devices will give different numbers? How does this photo prove which number is actually the accurate one?

vfnmoody

On a scale of 1 to 10 I'm still about 243.

So that does bring up the question as to why it the difference between the two measures matters. If you do the same work out everyday and use the same machines everytime you get a result that is relavant and reproduceable that might be all you need. As I have lost weight the treadmill reminds me that a 4 mile walk does not burn as many calories now as it did in january I ether have to walk father or run faster to burn the same number of calaries. So does it need to be exact ?

This armband seems like it would be quite accurate and produce repeatable quality numbers. It also seems like it would have the abillity to invade your life with its constant monitoring,the need to log all your meals and sleep with it.
That also sounds like a great gift for the compulsive chart builders on the Christmas list.

I can see not thinking the armband is worth the trouble if what you are doing is working. If however you are not getting the results you want thearmband might be the way to find out what you need to change.

I would like to see some statistics on how long the average user keeps on using the armband.

musiche

Well, it only needs to be charged every few days and it will gather days more data than that before you need to upload it. I just leave it all the time and don't notice it and it does it's thing.

I lost 80 and then 60 pounds the old fashioned way: diet and exercise. Eventually that stopped working for me, and that's why I got the armband. Deficits of all denominations have left me stuck where I am for years now, and that is frustrating. Years worth of plateaus... I've tried many different approaches to get some more weight off and just ended up confused and frustrated. So, why not get more information and get a clearer picture, right?

wolfchild59

While I certainly don't put my trust in the machine readouts, BodyMedia Fits are also notorious for not having accurate readings for ellipticals, biking, and ARC/AMT machines due to the reduced arm movements.

Mine was actually so far below my HRM on the ARC/AMT, and even lower on the stairmill, that I stopped wearing it during those workouts and just enter the calories into the BMF site afterwards.

I even take some run BMF burns with a grain of salt. As one person mentioned, the more I run the more efficient I get and the fewer calories my HRM shows me I burn. I'm able to run longer periods of time at the same pace, or faster, as I would before but my heart rate doesn't spike like it used to with the exertion, so my HRM calories reflect that.

But the BMF is entirely off of sweat, heat, and movement. So my calorie burns on my BMF just go up and and up as I increase distance. And if I run later in the day when it's warmer than my morning runs, or I get myself more hydrated and I'm sweating more than another day, my BMF shows a higher burn even if my heart rate never goes above low to average.

It doesn't make me stop wearing the BMF or only trust my HRM (or my RunKeeper app, which also calculates and is usually in between the two, but closer to the HRM). But it's definitely that I've watched over the year and a half I've worn the BMF and two years I've used an HRM and really just shows that you can't put faith 100% into any one device to tell you what you're burning unless it's a medically/scientifically supervised type of thing.

Anastasia0511

Where can you get one?

If you buy it from Costco online you will get a free one year subscription versus 6 months when you buy anywhere else it's only 6 months free. I have one and it was one of the best investments I've made. I wear it pretty much 24-7. The fact it tracks my sleeping was almost enough for me as I have issues with insomnia.

darrensurrey

I'm in trouble, then: I pedal my gym bike like I'm being chased by Hell's Angels for 30 minutes and it reads "100".

bradphil87

May be a dumb question, but do you keep you heart rate with the machine as well? Some (like mine) have hr monitors built in

lornaloo3

Arm bands with systems based on movement will be mildly inaccurate on low impact excercise equipment like the Crossramp or another eliptical. Bodybugg arm bands (and other brands) do not feel the full impact of your movement when you're using these machines. I wouldn't say that the machine is wrong or that your band is totally wrong. They're both estimations, but since the machine has your heart rate and understands you're doing a low impact activity I'd be more inclined to believe the machine's total.

Mighty_Rabite

I usually don't track calories burned via exercise (all I really do is set a caloric intake goal for the day and try to stick by that while staying active), but if I do set a goal for the day, I try to get to where I can lop 30% off and be at my goal.

Like yesterday, I set a goal of 650 calories burned on the elliptical. I ended up doing 70 minutes and I did intensity intervals (level 13 for 3:10, level 15 for 1:10, level 17 for 0:40, rinse and repeat). Machine said I burned 954 cals so I looked at it and decided most likely equal to around 680ish. MFP estimated something around 804.. *shrug*