The change won’t require you to buy any new hardware; the GoWear FIT devices will automatically start using the new website, and your existing username and password will work there.

Speaking of the new website, they’ve significantly updated the look of the interface:

From a purely visual perspective, they’ve updated the graphics to a much more “web 2.0″ look: shiny, boldly colored boxes with rounded corners. They’ve also decluttered the dashboard quite a bit and made the actual data the focus. It looks nice.

The new look makes the site easier to use, and along those lines, it’s also faster. I haven’t dug in much yet, but I think they are relying less on Java, which slows down… well, almost everything.

The improvement I’m most eager to explore is the food logging. According to the BodyMedia announcement, they’ve added foods to the built-in database, made it possible to search by brand or category as well as food name, and improved the search in general. They’re also touting “flexibility,” which I’m guessing will become apparent as I use it, but certainly sounds like a good thing.

I understand there are improvements for PC users (it sounds like faster syncing, among others) but can’t tell you much more than that since I use Mac and Linux these days. I’m curious to hear PC users’ thoughts, though!

I’m also curious if the bodybugg site is similarly upgraded, or if this is a BodyMedia-specific thing. Any bodybugg users care to report?

Well, if you’re trying to decide which one to buy, the choice just got easier. The GoWear fit now supports daily food logging.

The logging tool is virtually identical to the bodybugg’s interface:

GoWear fit food logging interface

Throw in the sleep tracking and a lower price to boot, and the GoWear fit is now the obvious choice!

Now I’ve had my baby (December 21, 2008!) and I’m ready to lose the baby weight and get strong for the events we have planned for the summer (among them: a 350-mile 5-day bike tour). I ended up having a C-section (not my idea!) so I have been exercise-restricted, but today is my six-week follow up appointment and I expect the doctor will give me the go-ahead.

I’ve started tracking my food with Gyminee, and I’ll be focusing on cycling and also a bit of running and swimming with the goal of finishing a sprint-length triathlon this summer. Also, the good folks at Body Media (the company that makes the bodybugg) have provided me a GoWear Fit unit to review, so I’ll be reporting my experiences with that, too.

Finally, a visitor sent me the following questions:

I’m trying to lose 15 pounds, and was hoping I can get your input.  It’s odd, but I have coincidentally been studying and thinking about trying both Extreme Fat Smash and JUDDD diet and then I ran across your blog which discuss both (I’m also interested in Crack the Fat Loss Code by Wendy Chant).  Can you compare the two from your experience (difficulty, ease in maintaining, quirks, pros/cons, etc…)?

In my experience, the Extreme Fat Smash diet is both more difficult and more effective than JUDDD. I don’t think either one of them is sustainable (though some might be able to stick with JUDDD for a long time, I guess). I see both of them as a kick-start to get the scale needle moving in the right direction—but you have to follow it up with something that will work long-term, or you’ll just undo your progress.

Since you want to lose 15 pounds, I’d probably go with the Extreme Fat Smash and really devote yourself to it for at least three weeks. It’s highly unlikely you’ll lose all 15, but you’ll probably get a good chunk of the way there—it’s a heck of a kick-start. Then you can either do it again or simply follow a reduced-calorie diet for the rest of the loss you’re looking for.

One thing I liked about the Extreme Fat Smash is that I didn’t have to put much thought into what to eat or how much. It took a while to prep the food, but mentally, it was easier than deciding what to eat. I do well when given a specific plan, though, and knowing it was “only for three weeks” kept me motivated when I otherwise would have given in to temptation.

Do you have any suggestions on how to control hunger?  I am really bad at portion control and eating chocolate.  I try so hard, but I often can only go a few days, at most, before I cave.

NutritionData.com has a very cool feature that tells you the “Fullness Factor” of pretty much every food. I’ve found this helpful in reducing hunger—when I’m really in the groove, I have to work to meet minimum calorie guidelines (this usually takes a week or two of being serious before I’m that in tune with my body, though). Figure out what foods give you the most bang for your calorie buck by experimenting a little.

As far as chocolate goes, it’s like any other temptation… it’s too easy to give in if you’re constantly considering it. For me, that means I need to keep chocolate either out of the house altogether or not easily accessible. I use social pressure to my advantage here, too. For instance, I won’t open a sealed bag of chocolate chips to munch because I’d be embarrassed if I got caught. However, when there’s an open bag of chocolate chips, I’ll snag a few every so often… so I have to avoid having open bags around.

I’m also a big fan of bribery. Right now, my husband and I have a deal that if I stay on track with my weight loss goals, I’ll get a GPS computer for my bike in June. So when I’m faced with a delicious-looking piece of cake when I don’t have room for it in the calorie budget (as I was on Monday!), I can ask myself, “Is this piece of cake worth losing that GPS computer?” When put that way, it’s obviously not worth it, and I was able to resist.

For stuff that you really love, though, it’s smart to make room for it in your diet. With that piece of cake, I ate less of other things on Tuesday so that I could have the cake. I have dessert almost every evening, too, because I plan for it. For me, it’s an important component in avoiding that “deprived” feeling.

Does anyone else have some good tips for controlling hunger and avoiding temptation? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

It’s been about four and a half months since I bought the bodybugg at my local health club. I went through the training sessions (where I got some good info, even though I found the bodybugg site pretty intuitive and didn’t need a lot of help with it). I was motivated by the interesting information and synced my armband several times a day. I faithfully logged my food and saw good results.

At first.

Then, like any other long-term “resolution,” I started being a little less dedicated in my efforts. I only logged my food when it was convenient. I wasn’t as faithful about syncing. And after the included three-month subscription ran out, I let it lapse. (That was partly because I was going on a week-long bike trip and wouldn’t be able to sync, log food, or get real-time feedback, but also because I didn’t want to pay unless I was committed to actually using the service.)

What does that say about the bodybugg? Well, actually, not much except that it’s like any other tool: you have to use it to get any benefit out of it! And I did get some great benefits when I was using it.

From May 22 to early August when I started slacking, my daily average weight dropped from 150 to 139. Not the incredible numbers you’ll see on The Biggest Loser, mind you, but numbers that made me happy, particularly since my end goal is 130.

My current average weight is 143. I have no doubt that if I’d stuck with my faithful bodybugg use, I’d be at my goal by now.

So why didn’t I stick with it? Lack of focus. When I first started with the bodybugg, the novelty aspect helped me stay interested in my health, and encouraged me to make good food and exercise choices so that I could see a positive and accurate picture.

After a while, the novelty wore off, and without paying much attention, I stopped caring whether something was a good choice or not. Last night I missed dinner and ate a lot of dessert, then came home, had dinner, and ate more dessert. If I was logging food, I never would have done that.

So what can you expect with the bodybugg? I’d say it depends on your personality and habits. It’s certainly a useful tool to give anyone a kick in the butt to make a change. The question is whether you’ll be able to stick with it after it’s no longer new and exciting.

If you are the kind of person who can stick with something as long as you get useful feedback, the bodybugg is probably your dream come true.

If you get bored easily and hop from thing to thing (like me!), it will be useful as long as you’re able to remind yourself of the value, but if you don’t have confidence that you’ll be able to do that, you might end up spending a lot of money for short-term results.

(Of course, if you’re like me, you really read this secretly hoping that I would tell you, “It’s a miracle device! Buy one immediately and it will be worth your money a thousand times over!” At least, that’s what I hope people will say when I look for reviews of a product I’m considering…)

If you’re not sure whether the bodybugg is a good investment, I have a kind of wacky suggestion to help you decide:

• Determine the cost per pound/body fat % lost that would make it a good value for you personally. For instance, given a rough $400 price tag for the model I bought (they didn’t have the Digital Display when I purchased), and my solid 11 pound weight loss, that comes to about $36 per pound (or about $89 per body fat percentage point lost, because my body fat went down by 4.5%). How much would you pay to get rid of a pound of fat? If you’re willing to pay $50 per pound (and you don’t get the Digital Display), then you’re talking about losing eight pounds. If it’s only worth $10/pound to you, then you need to lose 40 pounds to make it an acceptable value to you.
• Divide the number of pounds you’d need to lose for it to be a good value by 1.5. A pound and a half is about what most people can count on losing per week if they’re making a serious effort. It’s not a hard and fast number, but it will help you figure out a realistic number of weeks for losing the weight.
• Ask someone who knows you well (and whom you trust), “Do you think I can stick with a diet plan for x number of weeks?” This is the hard one! History doesn’t always predict the future, but if your trustworthy-someone expresses doubt that you can stay committed long enough for you to get your desired value out of the bodybugg, I’d seriously suggest a waiting period before purchase. If you can get them to tell you how long they think you could stick with a diet plan, run the numbers backwards and see how it impacts your price per pound. Would that be acceptable?

Odd? Yeah, a little. But if you’re worried about making an emotional decision that could cost a lot of money, or creating family stress by spending so much on a gadget and not using it, or providing further ammunition in an argument about how you don’t finish what you start, hopefully that analysis will at least help you see it more logically. (If the analysis turns out well, you might also have a good argument to convince your spouse. )

Oh, and by the way, I’ve re-upped my subscription and have all the best intentions to be serious about my tracking from now until the end of November. Then I’ll re-evaluate.

You know how when you consider buying a new vehicle, you start seeing them everywhere?  Something similar happened when I started wearing the bodybugg.  Not that I saw them everywhere (because they just aren’t that prevalent yet), but Daniel kept hearing me hiss, “Look, she’s wearing a bodybugg!”

Imagine my surprise when I tuned into The Biggest Loser last week and spotted the tell-tale gray armbands.  “Look, bodybuggs!” I cried.  We immediately speculated that the bodybugg was going to be featured (The Biggest Loser is really over-the-top with product placement), but as the show went on, no mention.

Sadly, it wasn’t until today that I made the connection that Apex is affiliated with both bodybugg and 24 Hour Fitness, which is heavily promoted on the show.  Then this evening as I was logging my food, I saw I had a new email from Apex titled “bodybugg reaches 100k ‘big losers’”.  Sure enough, tonight there were a lot more bodybuggs visible, and as I’ve been writing, a little blurb with trainer Kim where she looked at one of the contestant’s data (though it looked like she was looking on a Mac!).

I’ll be interested to see over the course of show how much they feature the data.  I might even pick up some tips for my own bodybugg use, if they take it past the typical “this is neat, go buy it” schpiel.

As it happened, my mom was in town recently, and her main exercise staple is HIIT running—one minute running, one minute walking, five times for a total of 10 minutes of exercise.  My sister Leanna and I decided to join her for a workout.  The workout itself was embarrassingly taxing; I’m supposed to be in decent shape, after all, with all the biking I’ve been doing.  You wouldn’t know it for all the gasping and coughing, though!

When we finished up, I waited a few minutes and synced my bodybugg.   I wasn’t surprised to see that it had spiked my calorie burn rate quite nicely (up from my sedentary 1-2 calories per minute to about 8 a minute for those killer 10 minutes).  But when I checked again later, I saw that my burn rate was back in my standard ho-hum range after just a couple of minutes.

Intervals are good for other things, though, and I wanted to get at least a few data samples, so Daniel and I did 30-second intervals on the road bikes one evening for 1o minutes total (in addition to the rest of the ride).  This didn’t spike my calorie burn rate as much as running (I’m guessing because I at least have the muscles for this sport) but still moved it up nicely.  No long term burn, though.

We did more road bike intervals the next night, and I ran the one-minute intervals with Leanna the day after that.  No ongoing metabolism increase followed.

So now the question is, of course, where is the misinformation?  Is the HIIT claim inaccurate, or is the bodybugg not picking up on the effect for some reason?   I honestly have no idea, and really no way of finding out.

I’m going to continue to do intervals regardless, running because I want to encourage Leanna and I figure it’s probably good cross-training in small doses, and cycling because I want to develop the ability to sprint a little more effectively.  But it seems that I’ll need to motivate myself with gains in sport-specific efficiency rather than magical weight loss!

Yesterday, though, the bodybugg let me down.  Here’s the scenario.Daniel and I had been planning for a while to do what he calls “the big Hard Guy loop.”  As I mentioned in another post, Hard Guy is an advanced mountain biking trail that has long been held up to me as one of the most challenging partial-day rides around here.  A couple of weeks ago we did the Hard Guy trail itself, but were waiting for a Sunday when we would have abundant time to do the big loop.

The big loop starts with three miles of constant climbing on the road to get to the beginning of the dirt trail.  It then proceeds as we did it before, with a little over six miles of almost constant uphill on a dirt trail (sometimes single-track, sometimes old Jeep trail).  When we did it before, we turned around at that point, and rode back down to the pavement where we’d parked.

Instead of stopping there, though, the big loop climbs a dirt road for another 500 feet of altitude in about a half-mile of distance.  Yeah, that hurt.  We stopped to let the nausea pass and had a quick snack, and then rode down the other side of the summit for a while on road, hit a couple of single-track trails with downs (Scott’s) and ups (Corrals), climbed back to the road, went down a short trail, and looped back to our original starting point on one of my favorite trails (Crestline-Kestral).

All said and done, it comes to about 22 miles (as opposed to the 12 or so for just the Hard Guy trail).  I had extra motivation, too, because Daniel bribed me with a rain shell if I did the whole loop.  I felt like I did reasonably well, not taking any breaks (even though I was so tired) except for the one at the summit, so I deserved my prize.

When we finished up, Daniel looked at the Polar heart-rate monitor he was wearing and read off the stats: 4 hours, 25 minutes of riding; 2550 calories; average heart rate (which I can’t remember, but know was annoyingly low because he’s annoyingly fit).  I was very tired and looking forward to getting home and syncing my bodybugg to see how many calories I’d burned.  Considering that the much shorter Hard Guy ride a couple of weeks ago burned 954 calories, I was also looking forward to a good lunch.

Imagine my surprise (read: freak out!) when I downloaded my data and was told I’d burned just 1212 calories!  In four and a half hours of killer hard work!  (Okay, some of that was downhill… but only about an hour of the total.)  Arrggg!

I felt terrible.  I’d put in this ton of effort, and apparently it was really minimal in the end.  I was ready to go all out depressive.  Fortunately, Daniel popped in to see the results and immediately protested their accuracy.  I argued feebly for the accuracy for a little while, and he asked how the results are calculated.  I pulled up bodybugg’s “The Science Behind bodybugg” page and had him read it.  There were a few things that bugged his engineer-brain:

•  The “Heat Flux” metric that’s a core part of the way the bodybugg calculates work.  One thing I didn’t mention above was that the temperature was mostly in the 90s (Fahrenheit) for our ride yesterday (as opposed to 60s and 70s a couple of weeks ago).  Daniel thinks that maybe the bodybugg wasn’t accurately recording this metric since the air temperature was about the same as the heat I was dissipating.
• The bodybugg doesn’t seem to track heart rate, which is a pretty accurate indicator of cardio exertion.
• The accelerometer seems like it would be less helpful on a bike, particularly on uphills where the forward progress is extremely slow, but very steady in both forward speed and on the various axises (axes?).  I expect that the accelerometer actually has more relevance going downhill, when there’s a lot of motion in all directions (especially on my hard-tail bike!), but the effort level is just a fraction of the climb.

Honestly, we have no idea why the numbers were so low.  I’m going to ask my bodybugg trainer about it on our call tomorrow.  But Daniel (together with the comparison data from the shorter ride) has persuaded me that the numbers really are low.  Even bodybugg’s calorie calculator suggests I should have burned at least another thousand calories.

At this point, my biggest question is: if it doesn’t give me accurate data for my chosen sport (cycling in various temperatures!), should I try to return it and get my money back (and buy a sweet Polar HRM), or keep it for rest days?  What do you think?

If you’re not familiar with the bodybugg, it’s a nifty little gadget that tracks actual calorie expenditure (or as close to it as you can get outside of a lab setting). There are two parts: an armband that you wear during all waking hours (except when you’re wet, so not in the shower or the pool), and a website that tracks the data. The big benefit is that it’s possible, with consistent food logging, to know exactly what your calorie deficit (and expected weight loss) is.

I’d been pining after one of these toys for a couple of months, and tried to convince Apex, the manufacturer, to give me one to review on this blog. Sadly, they completely ignored me (didn’t even write back to say no, which I though was somewhat rude).

Eventually I gave up checking my spam folder “just in case” and decided to plunk down the substantial chunk of change ($399) and buy the dang thing. One of the trainers at my local health club was nice enough to spend an hour showing me the bodybugg a month ago when I was looking at starting the Johnson UpDayDownDay diet, so I bought it through him (I’m assuming he gets a commission).

Setting the beast up was a bit annoying. First, I followed the included directions and logged into the site. I wasn’t very far into it when I encountered the following:

The bodybugg system will not work with the operating system you are currently using. You’ll need to upgrade your computer.
To learn more, click here http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/howtobuy/default.asp

Given that I’m on a Mac, I found the statement about upgrading my computer a little insulting. (Understand that I’m OS-agnostic; the language just seems a little rude.) I hadn’t realized that it was Windows-only (given that it’s web-based, uses Java, and syncs through USB). I don’t usually worry about that since I also have a laptop running Windows Vista; I just would have liked to connect the USB sync device to my desktop, since it’s not constantly being moved.

No matter–I grabbed my laptop and proceeded to set up there. Only… the site suggested that Firefox is an option (it tested for browser compatibility as well as the OS, and Firefox passed), but it got increasingly buggy as I went through setup. One particularly bad window used only about a 150×250 pixel space to display everything (despite maximizing the window) and required a ridiculous amount of scrolling to answer the large number of questions… only to do nothing when I hit the “Done” button.

It eventually occurred to me that even though they seemed to support Firefox, their odd attachment to Microsoft might imply that Internet Explorer would work better. I pulled up IE7, logged in, and wha-la: success. Turns out that they have designed so thoroughly around IE that it’s pretty much inoperable in other browsers, which is poor design (in this web developer’s opinion) but manageable since I actually have the required hardware and software.

Once I got that all sorted out, I got asked about food preferences, goals, all that good stuff. I’m now the proud owner (no, wait, the site is subscription-based…) of a page with little charts on it.

You can definitely tell it’s an up day! No exercise, and a lot of food… but in my defense, I logged all the food I’m planning on eating today, not just what I’ve eaten so far. Guess I’d better get jogging or something!

Now one of the disappointments of the bodybugg (but I knew it before I bought it) is that it only tracks calories used, not calories consumed. I know, I’m kind of just nitpicking at this point, but logging my food is always the hardest part of dieting for me, and the bodybugg ad on the official site kind of seemed to imply that it tracked intake. I figured out early on that it doesn’t, but it’s still kind of sad for me.

However, one of the things that sold me on the bodybugg is how easy their food tracker is to use. They seem to be using the Java equivalent of AJAX to quickly pull up foods and make adding them a breeze. I’m interested to see how well their “frequent foods” stuff works, but that will take a couple of days of using it. In the meantime, the food database seems reasonable complete and I’m feeling hopeful.

More updates to come as I actually get data!