Thinking Body Bugg

i used to have a BodyMedia Fit (very similar to Body Bugg), but sold it on eBay. it would consistently say my average burn was anywhere from 2600-3000+, yet there was no way i could eat 2000 cals and lose -- let alone 2200-2300 (to have a smaller deficit since my goal is to lose less than 10 pounds). there is a reported 10%+/- variance on the data it reports. i also didn't like how big it was. it was hard to conceal and was definitely a conversation starter in group yoga/exercise classes.

a lot of people really like them. it just didn't work out for me.

I got mine for Christmas when it was on sale. i love it so far. the first few days i was a little depressed, but that was because I expected my sedentary burn to be higher! lol...But if i do simple things like going to the grocery store or walmart i usually burn and extra 200 which is totally nice. i can only imagine what i burn when i exercise! hahaha... i have yet to really put that to the test though..hehe..I did Just Dance and burned like 100 calories in 2 songs going 110% trying to burn a few extra! lol I personally think its a solid investment for anyone wanting to lose weight. I have yet to have an official full week weigh in with it though. I wasn't counting calories the 2 days after Christmas and of course decided to have a free day tonight. But will be hard core after the first of the year.

bump- I'd love to hear future opinions that surface.......

Used BodyMedia (maker of BodyBugg and SenseWear) for 4 months. Was always disappointed how inaccurate it was for intense workouts, no where near what HRM and sites estimated for that level of effort - which is much more accurate.

Was disappointed when I compared some equal run distances between the cool gym treadmill with fan blowing on me and medium HR, to outside in July 100 F heat with hills and much higher HR. Distance was the same. Website estimated the same calorie burn, and well below estimate from actual HR.

Was disappointed twice when I forgot to put unit on, and because the "sweat" sensor touched the band where I laid it, it thought it was on-body the whole day. Meaning the website does NOT let you manually input ANY estimates of use. Company confirmed that problem can happen.

Was disappointed and really researched the accuracy claim after an 8 hr day of chainsawing down some trees in the backyard in the fall. Wasn't sweating, no high HR. But arms were of course swinging like crazy the whole time, besides vibrating from the chainsaw. I receive a calorie burn per minute 3-4 times what the most intense exercise had ever given me.

The proved to me:
The "sweat" sensor is nothing more than on-body sensor. It can't tell the difference between amount of sweat and how that relates to activity level.
The heat sensor is not used. Perhaps not yet, but obviously not in calculations. Besides, how is the heat in 1/4 sq in going to be meaningful? Several nights of sleeping warm did not increase the nightly cal/min estimate.
The motion sensors are great for pedometer type exercise, not much else. Glorified, but useful, pedometer.

But expensive monthly pedometer. Wish I'd gotten the FitBit for the exact same type of inaccuracies, but you can manually add in your exercise and no monthly fee.

There program does indeed work though. You accurately log your foods, the unit underestimates your exercise. So even if you are not accurate on food logging, you are covered. And weight loss is about guaranteed.

In researching their claim to accuracy found the following study which explained so much to me. Until they allow you to pinpoint what your workout was, they cannot used these exercise-specific algorithms.
Oh, they recently added the ability to import Garmin and some other HRM makers HR data for a workout.
Haven't done it, but from the instructions and screen shots, HR is still not taken into account to estimate calories. But at least they are getting closer with that step. Which will prove right then - they know they can't do it as accurately.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15126727

When a generalized proprietary algorithm was applied to the data, the SenseWear Pro Armband significantly underestimated total energy expenditure by 14.9 +/- 17.5 kcal (6.9 +/- 8.5%) during walking exercise, 32.4 +/- 18.8 kcal (28.9 +/- 13.5%) during cycle ergometry, 28.2 +/- 20.3 kcal (17.7 +/- 11.8%) during stepping exercise, and overestimated total energy expenditure by 21.7 +/- 8.7 kcal (29.3 +/- 13.8%) during arm ergometer exercise (P < or = 0.001). At the request of the investigators, exercise-specific algorithms were developed by the manufacturer and applied to the data that resulted in nonsignificant differences in total energy expenditure between indirect calorimetry and the SenseWear Pro Armband of 4.6 +/- 18.1 kcal (2.8 +/- 9.4%), 0.3 +/- 11.3 kcal (0.9 +/- 10.7%), 2.5 +/- 18.3 kcal (0.9 +/- 11.9%), and 3.2 +/- 8.1 kcal (3.8 +/- 9.9%) for the walk, cycle ergometer, step, and arm ergometer exercises, respectively.