Bodymedia and You (Part 1)

OK, so over a year ago I started an unofficial Bodymedia Facebook group, which is doing pretty well I must say. One of the things that we get asked from newbies all the time is "now that I have a Fit what do I do?". This first post will be going over some basics of what to do once you have a Bodymedia Fit armband. I will not be able to cover everything so it'll be broken up into different posts. Hopefully by the end of this series you'll be a master at handing the BMF device.

First Week

Oh yeah...I know I completely skipped over the answer to the question from earlier. The truth of the matter is that besides logging your food, you do nothing different for the first week of ownership. No changing of routine, no setting goals or anything. The first week of having the Bodymedia Fit (BMF) is affectionately called the "getting to know you" period. During this time, the BMF is getting used to the measurements it's getting from your body and you are getting used to reading  the "Activity Manager". On top of everything you also have to worry about the fit of your new device and if you can get to a point where you are comfortable with wearing it all the time. Less than 1% (apparently) of users experience irritation with the band, you want to make sure you are not one of these 1% during the first week.

Sample of a Weekly Summary

Activity Manager and Goals
After figuring out what you typically burn on a given day without modifying your daily routine, check your food diary and see the average amount of calories you are putting in your body. The general idea to losing weight is Calories in VS Calories out, BUT it is important to note that this is not everything**

At this point you must decide of a deficit. Your deficit is the difference between your calories in VS calories out. The theory is that the higher your deficit the more you loose at a given time. With this in mind, setting your deficit to 1000cal a day would help you loose 2lbs a week.

Getting to know your BMR
So, now that you know you need a deficit you need to eat less right? Well....not always, sometimes you'll need to eat more than what you're currently eating in order to loose weight properly (read: Safely). In order to do that you need to arm yourself with a minimum calorie intake each time based on your BMR or Basal metabolic rate. Without getting to into it, your BMR is the amount of calories your body would burn at complete rest. The best way to measure this would be to get the average calories you burn an hour while sleeping and multiply that by 24. This gives you a very good estimate of your BMR. Now you know how much you need to consume just to keep your body "running" if you will.

Eating under your BMR is never recommended. This can cause your body to go into "Starvation Mode", where your body will burn calories at a lower pace. This doesn't keep you from loosing weight but it can slow it down, and depending on who you ask...it may not slow you down a lot. More importantly it's not healthy to starve your body and should be avoided at all costs. Above all I hope you want to be "healthy" more than simply skinny. I know this was probably a lot thrown at you at once but hopefully everything will make sense by the end of this "Bodymedia and You" series. Don't be afraid to comment and let me know what other things you'd like me to post about.

** = Possible subject for future post.

[Update]: Thanks for all the feedback on this post. I wanted to clarify something. When I said "Do Nothing" I meant to say "Do nothing differently" if you are working out already be sure to keep doing that. I just meant that for the first week or so you should see where you are before trying to adjust your routine.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4