Arm-band calorie counter advice

I use the BodyMedia Core. The subscriptions is around $6-7 a month. I forget because I just bought one year all at once. You cannot wear it in the water. I like it, but it does not track certain workouts correctly. It does not appear to distinguish between an ab workout and lying on the couch watching Frasier reruns. It can get confused about whether or not you are walking as well. It considers my horseback riding pretty intense exercise (it usually isn't, but I guess the device thinks I'm running or something) and then says two hours of pole dancing only burned 300 or so calories.

It will link with MFP and it tracks aspects of your diet that you may not be tracking. The first thing it told me was that I was consuming too much sodium. I hadn't been keeping an eye on that, but when I looked back over a week or so of my food diary I realized it was right. I was way over on my sodium! Almost double on some days! I started watching it and lost 4.5 pounds of water weight after 3 days of eating lower sodium food. My bloating (which has plagued me for 20 years) also disappeared almost overnight.

Overall, I consider it worth the price just because it gave me a baseline for how much I burn in a normal workday. I was pleasantly surprised to find I burn around 2000-2100 even on days I don't work out. I had previously calculated my TDEE at around 1850 or so and was trying to eat at 1500. The BMF's calculations encouraged me to raise my calories to a comfortable level so I could lose weight without turning into a homicidal maniac. I also like that just wearing it will encourage me to take a few extra steps here and there because I like seeing that I made my goal at the end of the day.

I have a BodyMedia Link that I really like. It seems to log my exercises pretty accurately. I do mainly weights and aerobics classes. There isn't a really good way to measure calories burned while weight lifting that I know of, but it does know I'm moving and working hard once I get a good sweat on. For the aerobic classes it measures my calories pretty much exactly how my HRM did so I don't even wear the HRM anymore. It's also great because it syncs up with my cell phone and they're constantly improving the app and capabilities.

I wish there was an option of somewhere else to wear it though, now that it's getting warmer I find I won't wear it outside as much because I don't want tan lines and it's pretty conspicuous. I do wear it around the house all the time though and at the gym. I've heard you can slip it inside your bra band and get pretty accurate readings, but I haven't tried it. Overall though I love it and would buy it again in a heartbeat! HTH!!

I say buy a heart rate monitor and wear it when you exercise. That will give you a more accurate count of what you're burning when you work out. Normal daily activities like walking outside to get the mail and doing the laundry shouldn't really be considered as exercise eat back calories. Well that's my though on it anyway. I love my Polar FT4.

I definitely recommend BodyMedia!

I bought FitBit first. When I took it home, it wouldn't sync to my Macbook Pro. I went to the store, and they couldn't get it to work either, We tried a second FitBit incase the other one was faulty. The problem still existed. Others I've talked to haven't had this issue, but it was so frustrating that I'll never attempt purchasing from FitBit again.

Then I discovered BodyMedia and fell in love. It's even better than what FitBit offers! It tracks much more and with better accuracy, such as calories in and out, steps, amount of sleep vs. just laying down, etc. It uses science to calculate the data, whereas the FitBit using Wii technology. So, the FitBit is more like a pedometer, in my opinion. BodyMedia tracks everything, even when you are just sitting at your desk burning a small amount of calories.

I've used my BodyMedia for almost two months now. It's helped me tremendously stay motivated and lose weight. My first week, I lost 7 lbs with it! Here is a demo of everything it tracks: http://www.bodymedia.com/Products/Learn-More/How-it-works

I use MyFitnessPal to track my food and BodyMedia to track my exercise and sleep. BodyMedia offers a food database to track food, but I find that MyFitnessPal is much better. You can sync both accounts together so that the food and exercise display the same numbers on both sites.

You can sync your BodyMedia data with reward sites such as EarndIt and EveryMove. For so much exercise, you gain points. Then you use these points to get rewards (healthy food, exercise items, charity donations, etc). These sites also work with FitBit.

The only downfall about BodyMedia is it's an ugly grey armband, while the FitBit is a cute little device that can be hidden in a pocket. The BodyMedia device can be hidden under the sleeve of a shirt. I wish it was more attractive!

Overall, I recommend BodyMedia and feel like it would really help you lose weight.

I have Body Media Link...
I love that it can connect to your smart phone and update your data without having to take it off and plug it in.

I have had mine for about 2 weeks, and my god.. things are so much clearer now. No guessing, no estimating.. you know exactly your burn for the day and you can know exactly how much to eat in relation to that..

I used to have the fitbit zip..

BMF is WAY better!