I’ve been thinking more and more about purchasing a Bodybugg. You know, the armband “calorie management system” that measures your steps, your calories burned, and even your calories taken in (if you enter your food intake into the website they provide). Biggest Loser contestants wear one, although I’ve read recently that the newer models are much slimmer than the ones seen on the contestants.
My question is, do you think I should get one?
Pros
The reason I’m interested is because I’d love to know how many steps I take in and how many calories I burn during the course of a day. Everyone knows that those workout machines aren’t very accurate, and it would be nice to get a true sense of my calories in vs. calories out. I do use eTools faithfully, and I usually enter in my activity there, but the thought that this Bodybugg would measure ALL of my activity, not just the organized I’m-going-for-a-walk or I’m-on-the-elliptical-machine variety.
Cons
The part that makes me think twice about getting one is the price. At it’s best, the Bodybugg would be $149 through 24 Hour Fitness. That’s a lot of cash for a souped-up pedometer. Plus, I’m not sure I would utilize the caloric intake funtion, since I know I’m not going to want to enter my daily food on both eTools (WW.com) and on the Bodybugg site. For those on WW who use the Bodybugg, what do you do? Do you enter the info into 2 places?
Different Brands – Some Research, More Confusion
There quite a few different gadgets that seem to do relatively the same thing as the Bodybugg. There’s the GoWearFit, which is made by BodyMedia, the same company that makes the Bodybugg. Why one company needs to make 3 different products (there’s also the Sensewear, but I can’t use it because I have a MAC), is beyond me. Why not just have one great product, rather than 3 slightly different ones? They even have this comparison chart. After all of that info, I still don’t know which one to get, if any. The only real difference that I can see between the two devices is that the GoWearFit has nutrition assessment, while the Bodybugg has exercise and meal planning, as well as a group organizational component (don’t need it). I’m still unsure about the real differences of these products, other than these few minor components. Can any of you shed any light?
Feedback Needed – Please Comment
- For those of you who have the Bodybugg or GoWearFit, is it an essential part of your weight loss success?
- Why do you like it so much?
- Would you recommend it to me?
- Any comments or feedback you can give me would be appreciated. I’m usually not this indecisive.
Now, I don’t have a Body Bugg BUT to me they seem like kind of a waste of money. On top of the purchase price, you have to pay a monthly subscription fee to access your data! That’s crazy!
I think maybe you could find what you’re looking for in a specific kind of heart rate monitor. Like, Polar makes one (uh …. this one: http://www.polarusa.com/us-en/products/fitness_crosstraining/FA20/) that you can wear all day, it’ll tell you your calories burned and how many steps you take through the day. Which seems to be all you’re looking for? Then you could just not bother with the nutrition part of it and just keep using etools for that. I dunno, just a thought! I do have a Polar heart rate monitor (a different model) and I just love it, it definitely is satisfying to watch your ‘calories burned’ go up and up while you’re working out!
Oh, this is a good idea! I hadn’t heard of this particular type of heart rate monitor before – thanks so much.
Not a Bodybugg owner or candidate, but I won’t let that stop me from having an opinion.
Actually, it’s not my opinion, but something someone posted on another blog in response to a similar inquiry. She (I think it was a ’she’) was concerned that monthly fees would go up, and if she didn’t like it, she’d be stuck.
And that’s all I have to offer: someone else’s opinion.
This is a really good point, Cammy. The monthly fee is something to keep in mind, for sure.
I have the GoWear Fit and absolutely love it. The reason that I went with the GWF instead of the BodyBugg is that I didnt need something that tracked my caloric intake, I used WW for that! Also the monthly fees for the GWF are cheaper. I believe it’s $6.95 a month and the BodyBugg at the time was about $14.95 per month. You do have to use their software and upload the information (it only holds 14 days of data), but to me, it has been worth it.
I find that I am very motivated by the device, and in the begining used the display EVERYDAY. I now just check the display randomly. According to the GWF I burn way more calories than the excercise machines say I do, I think that for those of us who are fluffier, the machines dont do a great job!
See, now you made me want it again! I’m hesitant for some reason, which is so weird for me, because usually I’m very decisive, as I said. Ugh. I’ll figure this out soon enough. (I hope!)
Wow…okay, here are my thoughts. I absolutely LOVE the bodybugg. While the device itself appears to be the same, the web applications are different. You don’t HAVE to log your food with bodybugg. It’s ideal if you do, but, based on the amount of weight you lose each week, the bodybugg will be able to tell you your calorie consumption. It will figure out how large your deficit was each day. As long as I maintain a 750 calorie deficit daily, I lose a pound and a half per week. Some weeks I have lost 3 pounds, other weeks I haven’t lost anything. I am sporadic with my food logging and sticking to my calorie input of 1500 per day. But I love knowing how many calories per day I burn, how many steps I take, how much exercise (or they call it physical activity) I do. I am motivated to take the dog on a walk when my steps aren’t high enough. If it’s good enough for the folks on the Biggest Loser, it’s good enough for me. I paid $249 for bodybugg and it came with 6 months free website and a personal coach. My coach was so awesome! It was free and she helped me navigate the website and taught me all kinds of tricks to get my calorie burn high. The month to month fee is $14.95, or 100.00 for a year. GoWearFit, from their website, is $199.00 with only 3 months and a month to month of $12.95. They don’t provide a personal coach either. I will be at my goal in about 4 months so I needed the 6 months free web time. I love my bugg and really believe it’s the best thing for me.
Wow, this is great info. Thank you for leaving such a detailed response.
You’re welcome. Watch the fine print with gowearfit. You are locked into a 12 month committment of 6.95 plus the $249.00 when you buy the product. I only needed about 6 months for my weight loss so I would have lost $6.95 per month, multiplied by 6 months, and I would be out $42.00 for NOTHING!! You have to add that to the price of the product if you are comparing apples to apples. I don’t buy anything that locks me into monthly fees for any amount. With the bodybugg, after the 6 months subscription expires, I don’t need the website anymore so I will just let it expire. I can always buy more months if needed later on, and there is no fee. I made sure of that when I talked to my coach. I think the bodybugg is the way to go. You will lose weight if you use the equipment properly and eat the right amount of calories. Heart rate monitors will never be as accurate because the device (bodybugg and gowearfit) use more sensors than just a heart rate monitor. I use a heart rate monitor for spinning just for fun. I love it but would never rely on it to lose weight.
I’ve had the Bodybugg since March with no weight loss results and I’m not sure why. I’ve double checked my food intake and logging and I’ve made sure to wear the BB consistently, so it “learns” my body, as the trainer suggested.
I heard on a Jillian Michaels podcast that the heartrate monitor is just as effective (if not more).
I plan on continuing use of the Bodybugg, but when I start WW, I won’t use the online food logging. It’s tedious and time consuming. All I need to see are calories burned.
One potential downfall with the BB or GWF is that it might be tempting to eat more once you see how many calories you burn. I could easily burn 3000 calories a day according to the Bodybugg. Sometimes I’m tempted to eat 2000 calories a day because of it.
If you get a heartrate monitor, I recommend the Timex IronMan one. I’ve had it for a year and love it. Easy to use, attractive and relatively inexpensive.
Thank you for your comment – it really does give me a lot to think about. At this point I’m deciding between the BodyBugg (because of the association with 24 Hour Fitness, which is my gym) and a heartrate monitor that also tracks calories burned (that could be worn on the wrist). Once I’ve finally decided, I’ll let you know.
Have you met with your bodybugg coach? I was having the same problem and was starting to get frustrated. She showed me how to tell if I was eating more than I was logging….and I was. I wasn’t logging some of the meals I eat every day properly. She showed me how to trim lots of excess calories out and I started losing again, sometimes 2 pounds per week. I needed the extra help from the coach. I am lucky to burn 2200 a day! How do you burn 3000 daily? wow…you must be very active. If I eat 1500 calories ( I aim for 1300) I lose every week. Give it another shot, I honestly had given up till I got addicted to the bugg.
Hi Kay–
My weight “helps” me burn extra calories, but I typically walk to work and back and do 45 minutes of high intensity cardio (spinning) daily. Also, I work on a college campus, so I’m able to sneak in mini walks throughout the day between offices or meeting locations.
I have met with the Bodybugg coach and have consistently weighed and measured the food I prepare at home. I even measure out my nighttime indulgence: 2 level tablespoons of Ben & Jerry’s! (It’s WAY better than a full serving of the “light” stuff and has better quality ingredients.) Because I often eat lunch at the college’s dining hall, I suspect their nutritional information is not up to date.
I’m giving the Bodybugg a little more time. After this week, I’ll be preparing ALL of my own meals and I’m going to avoid eating out for a few weeks, just to get a sense of whether it is my calorie estimates that’s off.
Thanks for the tips, though! My next step is to try to lower my calorie intake a little more to see if that helps.
I just bought my gowear fit and you are not automatically locked into a 12 month committment. You have 3 options but the price increases with less time. 12 mos @ $6.95per month, 6 months at $9.95 per month and month to month at $12.95 per month. I can’t give a review because I just received it today but I do have a polar Heart rate monitor which I love. As a matter of fact, I found this site by doing a search to see if I could wear them both at the same time. I chose the Gowear over the Bodybugg because Amazon was having a sale of sorts and the Go wear monitors your sleep habits. I was really interested in seeing how much “quality” sleep I get each night. That was the main difference that I saw between the two as you can log meals daily with the gowear fit also.
I stumbled across your post while looking for info on the GoWear Fit. I’ve had mine for about 10 days now and thought I’d add my .02 to the mix.
I chose the GoWearFit because it was cheaper and had a couple extra features that the BodyBugg didn’t have. I paid $209 on Amazon and it came with 3 months of subscription .. then it’s $6.95/mo with a 12 month subscription after that. (BB is $14.95/mo).
GoWear does offer daily logging of food if you choose to use it. Or you can do the 3-day nutrition assessment to get an average. Or you can just enter what you know your calorie intake average is (which you know from using eTools) and it’ll keep that number as your average. So you have options. I personally am still using FitDay.com for my food logging, but then I enter that total daily calorie intake as a “custom food” in my daily food log on GoWear Fit. It’s a work-around, but at least I have the reports with accurate numbers all in one place.
The GoWear has two features the BB doesn’t.
Sleep Efficiency – you wear the armband to bed and it knows when you’re just laying down and when you’re actually sleeping. And it knows when you wake up in the middle of the night to pee. So the other night I was in bed for 8 hours but only had good quality sleep for about 6:15 hours. Which explains why I was tired and shows me I need to get to bed earlier.
Moderate vs. Vigorous Activity — the GoWear knows when you’re working harder. Right now I have my preferences set that when my calorie burn goes over 6 calories/minute I am racking up vigorous activity rather than moderate. So walking and swimming might be moderate, but running or weight lifting would be vigorous.
The one thing I wish GoWear had that BodyBugg has is the personal nutrition coach. It’d be nice to talk to someone who can view my data and tell me what I need to change to get the best results.
I have a review of my first week with the GoWear on my blog if you want to take a peek.
Good luck with your shopping!
Pam
All good info. I have worn/owned my Polar heart rate monitor for five years. Love it and would not workout without it. I have had my Metabolic testing done at my gym so my heart rate monitor is customized to me. That being said I also have had RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate) testing done to see how many calories I burn at rest. I have had this done 2x. Based on that info a trainer will tell you how many cals you should be eating per day to sustain based on your goals.
Good points made about the differences between the Body Bugg and Go Wear Fit. I debated on both as well. I ended up buying the Body Bugg per Chalene Johnson’s (Turbo Jam/Turbo Kick instructor) recommendation. I didn’t care about the monthly fee. When I purchased they were the same per month or you got the first 6 months free. I liked the fact the BB had a coaching session available. I do not belong to a 24 hour fitness but rather Lifetime Fitness and they do not sell the BB.
I have a friend who bought the Go Wear Fit and we compare notes all he time. She really wanted her sleep patterns monitored and is amazed at how LITTLE sleep she actually is getting. You can’t lose weight without the proper amount of sleep. I like that her device lets he set her activity level (moderate/vigorous). Bummer mine doesn’t have it being that is was designed for gym goers.
What I have found in the past week of my ownership. When I went for an 8 mile run and decided to wear both my heart rate monitor and BB to compare notes. Midway through the run the cal burn was dead on. End of the run they were very close in cals burned. However, going to the gym has proved otherwise. When on the stair climber they are off by 100 cals, elliptical off by 38 cals, arc trainer off by 32, Treadmill off by 42 and the list goes on showing the BB calculating less cals burned. I burned 408 cals on my heart rate monitor yesterday and only 242 on the BB. I was working out an hour. I was dripping in sweat. You can’t tell me that I only burned 242 calories!!!!!!!!!!! I am concerned that I will not be eating enough food if it is off by this much.
Another observation is that I noticed the BB after exercise will gradually come down on the number of calories burned per minute. That’s why I am wondering if the after burn that lasts for an hour or longer makes up for the missing cals that showed up on my heart rate monitor. I was tracking it for a while but don’t really have the time to watch it that closely.
My BB coach told me to give the BB another week or two and let it do it’s thing. After logging in a few weight measurements I should have a better idea of how it’s working for me. She has lost 70# using it and doesn’t question or think about it too much and just works the program. So, that’s what I’m going to do for the next few weeks.
That’s my .02 worth and then some:)
Wow, thanks for all of this info! I still haven’t bought a BB yet, but I just may buy one when school gets back in. We’ll see.
Just found this info that kinda answered my own questions:
Question in full: What kind of correlation is there between heart rate and calorie burn? I notice that in some of your scientific papers and testing, you used to have the bodybugg set up to work with a Polar heart rate strap.
However, I have had some VO2 tests done in a university exercise physiology lab and they seemed to indicate that there is a direct correlation between heart rate and calorie burn. I notice my bodybugg never reports me burning as much per minute as the university formulas would predict. For instance, I am a runner and participate in spinning classes. I regularly get my heart rate up around 90% of my maximum during these sessions and have had hard runs where my heart rate will average 85+% of my maximum. Yet the bodybugg never shows me burning more than about 7 calories per minute.
Answer: The bodybugg will be far more accurate than a formula based on heart rate (see information below for more) mainly because the armband will pick up the “flexing” of metabolisms. In other words, the better you get at performing an activity and the more fit you become, the fewer calories you will burn doing that same activity – this phenomenon, called “exercise economy,” is simply a standard mammalian adaptation to work and/or starvation. A formula cannot account for these changes but heat and skin sensors can. Experienced, fit weight lifters and cardio regulars burn far fewer calories than the neophyte or beginner when all else is equal (e.g. size, activity, etc.). If you believe you fall into the category of experienced or competitive runner/spinner, your calorie burn may be lower than you think. See below for more:
The human body is an amazing adaptation machine, including its ability to adjust to low calorie intakes and extended exercise bouts by slowing metabolism. At the end of the day, a well-tuned body, just like a car, can sustain itself on less fuel. The bodybugg has the ability to pick up this adaptation in most circumstances.
N : 01-2006 Date : Oct 2006
I am about to start a new fitness program and am confused by the differences between the Go Wear Fit and the Bodybugg.
Can someone identify the differences and why they are important. For instance, I would like to know my sleep pattern but I presume that if I get in shape my sleep pattern will work itself out.
I was going to invest in the Bodybugg till you all confused me with heart monitors and Go Wear Fit and I am thankful for the confusion, since I need to be educated and make the right decision.
Thanks for any help you can give me. JT.