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.

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One of the things that I like is their little affirmations that they show periodically throughout the workout and when you’re done. My favorite to date:

Enjoy the rest of the day as a fitter version of your former self.

This follows the second workout, and every time I read it, I thought, “That’s true! I’m fitter than I was 40 minutes ago!” A little cheesy, possibly, but very encouraging to me.

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So, why do I want to lose weight? Your reasons might be different, but here are some that resonate with me (and my rating of how important each one is to me):

• I’ll be more attractive to others, especially Daniel: important
• I’ll be able to keep up on the bike: very important
• I’ll get more compliments: somewhat important
• I’ll feel better, physically and mentally: important
• I’ll feel more in control: important
• I’ll prove I can achieve difficult goals: important
• Daniel will think I’m awesome : very important
• I’ll enjoy food in a healthy way: somewhat important
• I’ll make other women look like slackers in comparison : somewhat important

The next step is to actually write these reasons on my card in order of importance, and set up a reminder system that will ensure I look at the card at least twice a day. The author places great emphasis on actually doing this, rather than just thinking about it. After all, if you can’t do a simple exercise like this, you probably won’t do any of the hard work of weight loss.

I’ve made three copies: one to carry, one to post on the bathroom mirror, and one for my computer monitor. This will ensure I look at them many times a day, and I will commit to reading the one on my computer every time I check my email (that’s a lot!).

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I don’t remember how I first heard about this book, but it was probably one of many that I find while playing on Amazon (I know, some people play cards, and I play on Amazon…). My general Amazon policy (central to me actually retaining some of my income) is that I only buy books that aren’t available at the library. In this case, it meant I waited on hold for this book for a month or two, and that I need to decide whether to buy it or not in the next few days, since I have to return it on July 5th.

The premise of the book is straightforward: it’s difficult or impossible to maintain the healthy behaviors that result in weight loss if you don’t change the way you think. Dr. Beck’s father is also the father of the Cognitive Therapy school of thought, and this book is essentially Cognitive Therapy applied to weight loss.

The Beck Diet Solution is made up of six weeks’ worth of daily exercises. The first two weeks are focused on preparing to diet. I’m already dieting, but Dr. Beck says it’s incredibly important to do those, regardless of current dieting status. That makes sense because those weeks are about establishing the habits and knowledge that help with actually sticking to a diet.

Week three is about understanding your body while dieting—learning to accurately interpret its signals and be realistic about progress. Week four deals with sabotaging thoughts (a major focus of the book, based on the introductory chapters), while week five tackles various challenges that can ruin a diet (food pushers, eating out, traveling, and emotional eating, among others). Finally, week six is about fine-tuning your dieting skills for the long haul.

I’ll have more feedback as I go through the book, but my first impression is good. As I mentioned, I’ve got some issues with food and taste, so I hope that working through this book will not only help me see food more accurately but will also help me want to make changes for the better.

The Amazon reviews for this book are very encouraging. Reviewer after reviewer reports success, and many of them are the “I tried everything, nothing worked, and then I found this” type. I also like that the book is compatible with any diet (since I like to try them all!) and develops lifetime skills. I’ll be working through some of the exercises here on the blog (when it makes sense to do them that way) so you’ll be able to see if the book might be helpful for you as well.

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I’m a pretty picky eater, and sometimes I say that I wished I liked more things (especially vegetables) because it would be more convenient to eat healthfully. But when I stop and think about it, that would probably just mean more things to overeat (does anyone really overeat peas, though?) .

I’ve been reading The Shangri-La Diet and one of the claims of the theory is that it will make you want to eat less. I’ll get more into the specifics of the diet in another post, but one key thing is that you eat a few hundred calories per day of tasteless food, and it cuts back your desire for other foods.

I got to thinking about this, though, and my gut reaction was that I don’t want to not want yummy things. Sure, logically, it would be extremely convenient to just not have interest in scones and French fries and ice cream. But I enjoy those things, and it seems like if I didn’t like them so much, I’d lose some small pleasure in life.

Then again, people on the diet generally say that they still enjoy tasty food, but that their cravings have gone away. They can basically choose whether or not to indulge, rather than being compelled. I don’t know… my brain agrees with that concept, but it just sounds kind of sad somehow.

I guess the bottom-line issue is that I’m using food for pleasure and not just as fuel, and that’s always going to cause some conflicts. The unfortunate part is that I don’t really want to change that perspective, because the “food as fuel” religion just seems too utilitarian and un-fun to me. Somehow I need to change that attitude before I can figure out how to keep food in its rightful place.

Anyone had any luck with this?

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I know that lots of people don’t like to weigh themselves daily (and that Johnson says to only weigh after a down day), but it works for me. It’s going to be much easier to do today’s down day knowing that it’s really making a difference.

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This is all well and good, but I’m having a problem: I can’t figure out how to reward myself.

I’ve decided that small rewards are in order whenever I hit a five pound loss and stay below it for seven consecutive days. But what should be the reward?

Food is obviously out. There are plenty of “things” I want, but I can’t afford to buy them for myself (my “fun money” has been in debt since I bought my road bike last summer—the snowboard season pass and the mountain bike haven’t really helped, either).

One idea I like is the idea of rewarding myself with free time or something I enjoy… but frankly, I’m self-employed, and the clients just don’t seem to want to pay me for time when I’m not working. (I think this is where you are supposed to chime in and say, “You have to prioritize caring for yourself, and make time for what matters!” Then I will say, “Have you ever been self-employed?” because I can be snide like that.)

I come seeking your advice. I’m looking for something meaningful that doesn’t cost very much (less than $5 would be great). How do you reward yourself?

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