anyone use BodyMedia?

I have a BodyMedia Fit Link. It is designed to be worn all day, as opposed to my Polar FT7 which I wear only while exercising. I don't find it to get in the way and I forget it is there most of the time.

The Link connects through Bluetooth with my iPhone 4. It is not a constant connection, though. When I want to see my current stats on my iPhone I have to press a button on the Link and it then syncs with the iPhone. That process does not work all the time, however. Probably 10% of the time I have to go into the Bluetooth setting on my iPhone, "forget" the armband and then re-pair it. I believe that the Bluetooth version on an iPhone 4s and 5 have constant connections.

Once I sync from the armband to the phone I can then upload the data to the web. This feature was not available (at least not for my iPhone 4) until a week or so ago when I did a firmware update and all of a sudden that feature was suddenly available. That was awesome because before that update I had to physically connect the armband to a computer (which meant I had to take it off). I would not do that but once a day so the data was never very current. My data is now able to be fairly current because I can easily sync at any time throughout the day.

In addition to calories, it tracks my sleep (how long I am lying down for vs. how long I am asleep) but I am not sure how accurate it is. I have considered trying a Zeo or similar device because I figure it is more accurate.

It also tracks how many steps I take and how vigorous my activity is throughout the day (vigorous v. moderate.)

All of this data is displayed in both a summary form and a chart form (by turning the phone to the side) on the phone. It also shows me a summary of my nutrition data from MFP on the iphone app. The data that I sync from the armband to the phone and then upload to the web is then synced with MFP to adjust my calorie total throughout the day. In doing so, it also readjusts its numbers once I put in my exercise (i.e., it doesn't count it twice.) This is nice because I can get (hopefully) a more accurate idea of how many calories I have burned at any given point in the day rather than the one-size fits all estimate that MFP does.

One downside is that it requires a monthly fee for the website to track and view the info. I currently pay $7 per month but once I see that I like it enough, I will get a one or more year plan for less per month.

All in all, I think it gives me fairly accurate information and plan on keeping it.

I just started and I love it already lost 1 pound my first day! I had to force myself to trust what it told me to do rather than fight it. That was the hardest part. I set up a group and a blog for us Bodymedia users in case you would like to join and then we can all share our experiences and laugh at life's little challenges.


Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Body_media_link
Blog - http://mybodymediaexperience.blogspot.com/

I have the Body Media Fit Link and love it! I've lost about 50lbs while using it. It's great because you can track your calorie burn, sleep efficiency, activity (moderate vs. vigorous time), steps (pedometer).

What I love about it is you can find out what exercises really work for you. It also is advertised to be 95% or better accurate. I find that doing 35 minutes of vigorous elliptical work I'm burning 200 or so more calories than what the machine has said, w/ my weight added in their for accuracy.

The other great thing is as you start losing weight, your at rest calorie burn decreases. Knowing how much your burning for calories you can work to keep your daily burn up by being more active. I sort of make it a game to keep my calorie burn above 3700 calories a day during the week. Then the weekend I try to keep it above 4200 calories for Friday through Sunday.

It also does work with MFP, so I've continued using it for my calorie intake.