bodybugg

This is an unsolicited review.  I received the bodybugg as a prize in a contest; I did not recieve it for the purpose of reviewing it.

And, no Mr. Daddy, I'm not talking about crabs!

I'm talking about the ultra-cool calorie management system I won through 24Hour Fitness' Refuel Your Fitness challenge.

The bodybugg is a sensor that you wear on an armband around your left tricep.  Last night, on the Biggest Loser, they had the contestants wearing it on their legs, but the bodybugg people say that the sensor is not calibrated to work on the leg and so the readings are incorrect.  It "reads" calories burned by measuring skin temp, sweat production, pulse rate and a cool accelerometer that can tell if you've been walking or running.  Since each person burns calories differently, there is a section during the set up that your weight, age, lifestyle, etc. has to be entered (body fat, too, if you measure that).  It's supposed to be 90% accurate (or more).

El Poquito Diablo helped me set mine up after one of our training sessions, so set up went fairly smoothly.  I could see that if you had to do it on your own it could be cumbersome and time-consuming.  Together (and by that, I mean, he told me what he wanted), we determined what my target caloric intake and deficit should be.  My goal deficit - I burn more calories than I take in - is between 500 - 800 calories/day.

The bodybugg does the calories burned calculations that you upload to the website, but the caloric intake has to be put in your profile manually.  Until yesterday, I had huge problems with this - there apparently was a Java update issue.  Java updated, myapex.com did not and they didn't play together anymore.  Seems to have been resolved, as I haven't had any problems putting in my daily intake recently.

I like visuals, so I really like the fact that when I upload my calories burned from the bodybugg (plug it into the USB port) and type in my caloric intake, I get a report that looks like this:

Today's graphs don't look so good; I didn't have time to work out today and I'm at work until 10 pm, so whie I still have a caloric deficit, it's by a much smaller margin.

I wasn't sure I was going to like this, but I LOVE it!  If you're working to lose a few pounds, this is a good way to do it.  I'm certain that this will help me break my plateau and get me on track again.  24Hour Fitness sells them, and from Nov 18 - 30, they will be selling the bodybugg V3 (like I have) for $99.00, which is a great deal!  As much as I love it, I don't think I would have paid full price for it - if I hadn't won it, I would not have even given it a second glance.  Now that I own one, I see what an opportunity I would have missed out on.

Oh! Oh! Oh!  A shout-out to 24Hour Fitness - they inadvertently sent me the V3 instead of the new SP that interfaces with smartphones.  I got a notice that the error had occurred and that they'd be sending out the SP.  I was careful with my V3, kept all the packaging and such, so I could send it back.  I got my SP in the mail and got a note inviting me to keep my V3.  Since I already had my V3 up and running, I gave the SP to Nebalee.  I think she loves it as much as I love my V3.