So, everyone knows that I love, love, love geeking out on technology– especially fitness technology.  Pair this with my love of pseudo-medical devices and you know I’ve got pretty much every bodyfat caliper/scale, pedometer, running gadget and gizmo you can imagine.  Enter: BodyBugg.   You may have seen the BodyBugg strapped to the arms of contestants on The Biggest Loser, but I’m convinced this tool has value for everyone from your average person looking to drop a few (or many) LBs to a seasoned athlete wanting to fine-tune their fueling for training.

I suppose I like to think of myself as a bit of the latter two.   I have dropped enough weight so far this year to be at a point I’ve not been in a very long time.  I’d like to drop about 7 more pounds, put on about 2 pounds of muscle, and successfully train for the San Francisco Marathon in July.  To accomplish this, I know that proper fueling is going to be essential.  Enter BodyBugg. (He needs a name. Hector comes to mind, but that was also the name of the mouse in me and Emily’s shed in Oakland… Hmmm…)

In a nutshell- The BodyBugg wraps around your upper arm and just kinda sits there all day taking measurements to give you your total calorie burn for the day.  It has skin sensors that track heat flux (how much heat is dissipating from your muscles), Galvanic Skin Response (how much you sweat), body temperature and movement (via an accelerometer.) Opinions vary on the internet as to whether the thing actually does anything other than track how much you move your left arm, but the magic really comes in the software that you use with the Bugg.  If you track your food eaten and use the Bugg, then enter your weight and bodyfat once per week, it “corrects for errors” by looking at how much weight you actually lost.

As I’ve mentioned many times on this blog- most people overestimate the calories they burn and underestimate the calories they consume.  The only way to know if you’ve got it right is to “check the other side of the equation” by looking at your data as tracked/entered against how many pounds actually come off.  Barring waterweight fluctuations, 3500 cal deficit = 1 pound lost.  So, if my Bugg says I burned X and my food log says I ate Y, but my pounds lost don’t equal X-Y times 7 divided by 3500, I know I’ve either not been correct in my food logging or am not burning as much as I think.

I will say, most people who first get the Bugg think it’s wrong because it counts fewer calories than they think it “should.”  (Case in point: I did an hour-long lift class at the gym yesterday that burned only 214 calories in an hour– I know that this is closer to the truth than not, but am interested to see how the numbers play out.)

I’ve had the Bugg since Friday.  I found set-up to be easy, but did have some wonkiness in my Saturday burn.  The wrist display showed me at far fewer calories burned than did the Web interface.  Some research shows that it could be because I rode around in a car all day on Saturday driving up to Tahoe. Apparently, the web interface can count that kind of wobbling as activity, so I am going by my wrist display. I emailed customer support and didn’t get a response until I sent them another email letting them know that I was about to blog my first week and needed an answer– and the answer I made it appear they hadn’t read my question and I’d need to call in, which I tried but could not get through.  So I guess customer support isn’t a strong point, but…

It’s also somewhat bothersome that, when registering, I told them I’d like to pass on my free coaching session for now (wanting to get a week or two into the program so that they can answer any questions that pop up), but they’ve been calling or emailing nearly every day to try to set up the session. Maybe I should set up my session just so I can ask my question about the mis-matched burn, but I’ll wait and see if it happens again.

I am looking forward to weighing in on Monday to see how my numbers net against my entered data.  I’ll keep you all up-to-date on how the BodyBugg is working for me!