Bodymedia and You (Part 3)

Last time I spoke about activity. If you were new to BMF (Bodymedia Fit) then I suggested not worrying about Moderate vs. Vigorous activity. Now I'm going to go in to what the differences are and why both are important.

METs

A MET or Metabolic Equivalent of Task is simply a method of expressing the energy cost of physical activity. The human body can typically go from .8 (sleep) to 18 (running at 10.9 mi/hr). So in short, the more you move the higher your MET level.

Bodymedia calculates your MET at any given time. Unlike most activity plans where you have an assigned value per exercise, with the BMF you have an amount of time that you are in a range of MET levels. If you are familiar with the BMF you probably already know the "Moderate" activity level. This is walking, jogging,  weight lifting, heck you could even be cleaning the house to get some of this activity time in. The default range of moderate activity is between 3 and 6 METs. For most people this should not be adjusted, mainly because METs are a scalable form of measurement to begin with. You and I could do the same activity and I could get as high as 3 METs and you could get to 4 or even 5.

Getting Vig

After 6 METs you reach a level of activity called "Vigorous" or "Vig" for short. Vig can be hard to reach at first, it takes a lot of pushing for beginners of the BMF if they are not already in shape. A quick method of reaching this state is running, not jogging, running. I'd suggest trying to run at over 6mph for 3 minutes (with proper warmup of course) and see if that gets you there just so you know what it feels like. I think for most people that would be enough to at least  see a little Vig in the chart. After you get a sense of where you have to be it is quite easy to reach that level, you will sweat, you will be breathing hard. Vig is all about pushing yourself harder, which is why it seems to be the best way to loose weight.

I say "weight" because sometimes that's fat loss, sometimes it's just water weight. One thing you have to keep in mind is that everybody is different. Some people respond very well to lots of Vigorous activity to get the results they want while others need Moderate to reach their goals, there are others still that do not even have the option for Vig for one reason or another. Keep all this in mind when you set your activity goals. As time goes on throw more Vig in a day to see if you can do it. If you see that you are not getting the results you want lower it, simple as that.

Sleeping

Honestly this is probably one of the areas that I think Bodymedia could use some improvement on. Each area of the Activity Manager's goals can be customized, with the only exception being....Sleep. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing when I am in a deep sleep or light sleep (although some people say that BMF registers sleep when they are just being still reading...I've never had that issue), I wish I could set my own goals. Bodymedia recommends 8 hours of sleep a day, this is not a bad goal in fact it should be everyone's goal. For me, however, this is practically unobtainable. 

As I mentioned earlier, besides sleep, every activity level can be adjusted. I don't necessarily recommend it but in certain circumstances it makes complete sense. So everyone what do you do to hit Vig? Leave a comment below!!

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4