BodyMedia Fit????

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Replies

  • cardbucfan
    cardbucfan Posts: 10,396 Member
    I just ordered one through Groupon too and I can't wait for it to get here so I can play with it! I have always used a HRM for my exercise calories rather than MFP or any machine calculations but I'm most curious about my non-exercise calories. I've been plateaued for quite some time losing and gaining the same three lbs. (and technically I'm in maintenance so shouldn't care about the scale but you can't change a lifetime habit like that!) so I'm hoping my new toy will help me figure out truly how much I burn and how much I should be eating. We'll all have to report back!
  • mab33
    mab33 Posts: 242 Member
    I love my BMF, it also showed me that MFP was a little low for my calories burned, but not all that off. Really what I like about it is that it motivates me to exercise more because it's harder to kid myself about how active I am. I have a desk job and unless I make an effort to exercise, I don't burn that much. I have the LINK so I link it with my phone, which is nice.

    I'm not super fond that I can't seem to adjust their recommendations for how many carbs I should be getting on the website interface. I keep getting notices that too few of my calories come from carbs (not even doing low carb by any means). The reports it generates are nice. I haven't exported the data to play with it in excel yet.
    I get that same message about not eating enough carbs. I'm trying to up my protein and eat fewer carbs. Oh well. I love the reports and seeing my weekly and daily deficits. Keeps me honest!
  • ronw52
    ronw52 Posts: 1
    I have just purchased a BodyMedia device and I am wearing it. I am still learning the details and meanings; however, my first night's recorded sleep was 5 hrs, so this has caught my interest. I figured out how I can see the minute by minute data (there is an "up" and "down" arrow on the right hand side of the dashboard - and this expands the details/data collected by the minute). Sure enough it is very close to my sleep pattern. The device correctly noted the several times that I got up. So now I understand why I am tired during the day. Right now I am going to both web sites, myfitness pal and bodymedia, entering the identical meals. Is there a way that the two web sites communicate with each other? I see that I can enter just calories in the Bodymedia log, and I may switch to this approach to say time and redundancy.
  • SteveHunt113
    SteveHunt113 Posts: 648 Member
    I've never logged calories into the BodyMedia website. MFP is my primary tool. The BMF is what I'm using so I can get an idea of what my maintenance calories should be.
  • roro73
    roro73 Posts: 153 Member
    I emailed the support team on bodymedia.com regarding the sleep issue (mine still only shows 1-3 hours per night). Apparently I must be a heck of a rough sleeper because my band shows that it loses contact with my body...even though when I wake up it's still on correctly. They also said if I sleep with my arms above my head (which I do because I sleep on my tummy alot with my arms up under my pillow) that it thinks that I'm awake. Oh well, the sleep part isn't as big of a deal to me as the calories burned although had I known that I would have gotten the body bugg because I think it's a little less expensive. I really do love seeing my actual calories burned!!

    Last night, I knew I was going to be close to not hitting my goal and I had company over watching a movie in the living room so I didn't want to be rude & go in the bedroom to walk on the treadmill...so for the first time ever, I marched in place while I watched the movie just to make sure I hit my goal...felt great!! Best investment in my health I've ever made :)
  • wolfchild59
    wolfchild59 Posts: 2,608 Member
    I emailed the support team on bodymedia.com regarding the sleep issue (mine still only shows 1-3 hours per night). Apparently I must be a heck of a rough sleeper because my band shows that it loses contact with my body...even though when I wake up it's still on correctly. They also said if I sleep with my arms above my head (which I do because I sleep on my tummy alot with my arms up under my pillow) that it thinks that I'm awake. Oh well, the sleep part isn't as big of a deal to me as the calories burned although had I known that I would have gotten the body bugg because I think it's a little less expensive. I really do love seeing my actual calories burned!!

    Last night, I knew I was going to be close to not hitting my goal and I had company over watching a movie in the living room so I didn't want to be rude & go in the bedroom to walk on the treadmill...so for the first time ever, I marched in place while I watched the movie just to make sure I hit my goal...felt great!! Best investment in my health I've ever made :)

    I'm a stomach sleeper as well and don't have any problems with it not recording my sleep, even when my arms are above my head. What I typically do at night anyway is to move the armband a bit lower on my arm and re-tighten it to fit that part of my arm. I do that mostly to give the area that I usually wear the BMF the night to "breathe" and I've found that it helps reduce some of the irritation I got when I first started wearing it.

    So maybe try at least tightening it at first, and see if that helps with maintaining the body contact through the night.
  • wolfchild59
    wolfchild59 Posts: 2,608 Member
    For the meal entering that I saw previous people posting about, I track all of my food in MFP as normal, and then I enter a single food item using "Create Food" in BMF. I just name the food for the date it's going for (e.g. yesterday's was 03/19/12 Food) and then, using the summary page from MFP, enter the entire days calories, macros, etc. as that single food item.

    That way BMF can see and record my calories consumed vs what was burned and what I've lost (or gained). I've worn mine for just over a year now and have seen adjustments since when I first started wearing it of how many calories I burn doing certain activities. Which makes sense because in the reading that I did about the devices before purchasing, it was stated that the longer you wear them the more they look your data and "learn" about your body and your burn.

    But part of how it learns is looking at trends between what it says your burning, what you're consuming and then if you're gaining or losing. So if you aren't recording calories consumed and/or a fairly regular weigh-in, you might be cheating yourself out of increased accuracy in results over time.
  • roro73
    roro73 Posts: 153 Member

    I'm a stomach sleeper as well and don't have any problems with it not recording my sleep, even when my arms are above my head. What I typically do at night anyway is to move the armband a bit lower on my arm and re-tighten it to fit that part of my arm. I do that mostly to give the area that I usually wear the BMF the night to "breathe" and I've found that it helps reduce some of the irritation I got when I first started wearing it.

    So maybe try at least tightening it at first, and see if that helps with maintaining the body contact through the night.

    Thanks for the tip! I'll try that tonight. Last night it was a little more accurate. It recorded 4 hours of sleep and the times I got out of bed were right on.
  • beachgrad05
    beachgrad05 Posts: 85 Member
    I just goe my Bodymedia LINK (bluetooth) on Friday. At first I wasn't wearing it on my back of my arm (Tricep area) and was affecting it being able to read my exercise. Since moving it to the correct position it is reading now correctly. Love the sleep feature.
  • Phrak
    Phrak Posts: 353 Member
    I have the BMF, id trust its numbers over a HRM any day. HRM are bad for calculating calories burned during weight lifting.

    However i find the BMF causes shoulder pain during upper body workouts as it applies pressure to the tendons in a weird way.

    Id love to see them allow you to wear it on your calf as an alternate.
  • Ambrogio1
    Ambrogio1 Posts: 518 Member
    Are there any devices out there that don't make you do a monthly subsrciption?
  • Does anyone know whats wrong with my bodybugg, the app keeps saying unable to upload dashboard data?
  • jaz050465
    jaz050465 Posts: 3,508 Member
    I went for the Nike FuelBand instead. I should have it in a couple of days and I am very excited.
    This is nowhere near as accurate as the BMF I'm afraid.
  • jaz050465
    jaz050465 Posts: 3,508 Member
    I just got mine in the mail yesterday from Amazon and here's my question:

    Do you guys manually log your exercise you do or do you find that the BMF accurately calculates the calories burned during the exercise? I wore my HRM for my kickboxing class last night AND my workout @ the gym this afternoon as well as wearing the BMF but I can't tell if the BMF was accurate or not. I don't know how many calories I had burned during the day prior to my workout so Im unable to gauge. Just curious what you all do here! :) Too bad we cant sync MFP & BMF together! !

    If you go to the activity manager and move the slider, you can isolate the period of exercise to see how many cals you burnt

    You CAN syn BMF and MFP!!!!
  • jaz050465
    jaz050465 Posts: 3,508 Member
    I have just purchased a BodyMedia device and I am wearing it. I am still learning the details and meanings; however, my first night's recorded sleep was 5 hrs, so this has caught my interest. I figured out how I can see the minute by minute data (there is an "up" and "down" arrow on the right hand side of the dashboard - and this expands the details/data collected by the minute). Sure enough it is very close to my sleep pattern. The device correctly noted the several times that I got up. So now I understand why I am tired during the day. Right now I am going to both web sites, myfitness pal and bodymedia, entering the identical meals. Is there a way that the two web sites communicate with each other? I see that I can enter just calories in the Bodymedia log, and I may switch to this approach to say time and redundancy.
    Yes you can sync the two together and just log your food onto MFP.
  • jaz050465
    jaz050465 Posts: 3,508 Member
    For the meal entering that I saw previous people posting about, I track all of my food in MFP as normal, and then I enter a single food item using "Create Food" in BMF. I just name the food for the date it's going for (e.g. yesterday's was 03/19/12 Food) and then, using the summary page from MFP, enter the entire days calories, macros, etc. as that single food item.

    That way BMF can see and record my calories consumed vs what was burned and what I've lost (or gained). I've worn mine for just over a year now and have seen adjustments since when I first started wearing it of how many calories I burn doing certain activities. Which makes sense because in the reading that I did about the devices before purchasing, it was stated that the longer you wear them the more they look your data and "learn" about your body and your burn.

    But part of how it learns is looking at trends between what it says your burning, what you're consuming and then if you're gaining or losing. So if you aren't recording calories consumed and/or a fairly regular weigh-in, you might be cheating yourself out of increased accuracy in results over time.

    Why do you do that? Just syn them together?
  • lizzardsm
    lizzardsm Posts: 271 Member
    The post you are referring to was from back in March 2012. MFP and BodyMedia Fit only *very recently* started synching. That option wasn't available back in March. Makes life a lot easier now! :)
  • 6size6
    6size6 Posts: 10
    I'm still having issues getting them to work together
  • jaz050465
    jaz050465 Posts: 3,508 Member
    The post you are referring to was from back in March 2012. MFP and BodyMedia Fit only *very recently* started synching. That option wasn't available back in March. Makes life a lot easier now! :)

    Oops. Didnt check that
  • jaz050465
    jaz050465 Posts: 3,508 Member
    I'm still having issues getting them to work together
    What's the problem. Mine work great together.