Dieting: Armed with Knowledge

by Lori Cunningham

I’ll admit it, I’m a stats junkie.  When it comes to seeing how many steps I walked in a day, hours I slept at night, even pounds I gained lost in a day, I want to know!  So when BodyMedia approached us and asked if we wanted to try out their subscription based BodyMedia LINK, I was all over it.  The BodyMedia LINK is an armband that you wear on your upper arm and it tracks your steps, sleep, intensity of your workouts, and calories burned.  I have been using it now for over 3 months and even took it on vacation with me, in fact, I rarely take it off, you might say we’re attached at the hip arm.

I have come to really appreciate and enjoy the BodyMedia LINK and found that it acts as my:

• coach – gives suggestions on how to keep my eating, sleeping, and fitness on track
• analyst – gives me stats to identify trends
• accountability partner – makes me more accountable for what I eat and when I exercise as “someone” is watching

Food Journal 

I’ve never been one to add food items to a food journal, I had hoped that somehow magically, the LINK would count calories for me, wouldn’t that be great?  But no, you have to enter in each item manually, but the food journal on the BodyMedia site and apps is pretty easy and straightforward.  I typically add my food in for the day without problem, unless it was just one of those really bad days.  Then I can’t bear to input it all in.    BodyMedia does however have an extensive database of food, so entering in a food log is not as cumbersome as it used to be.  You can even add in custom recipes of items you use most often.  I did this right away, as I drink a custom protein shake every morning.

Oh, and I added Costco/Sams Club samples, a must staple in my diet!

This is what the Food Journal looks like.  It is chock full of name brand grocery items.                                       Here you can see what you have been filling your body with.  Tsk, tsk!  Not a good day for me.

I found that during while wearing the LINK armband,

• I had more intent in what I was doing.  I walked faster on my morning walk because I had checked out the online exercise calculator on BodyMedia’s website and found that by picking up my pace I can burn more calories
• I thought more carefully about my eating choices, I wasn’t as mindless about them like before.  I now know I need to enter in every item I eat
• I was actually a little excited about trying to lose 10 lbs. again.  I have tried on and off over the years and this seems like an unattainable goal.  But now, armed with knowledge, I have a really good idea of what effort is needed or food to avoid to lose my needed amount of pounds

On this day, I didn’t meet my goal for burning calories, but you can see I burned 1908 calories, which isn’t terrible.  The goal comes from the number of pounds you want to lose within a chosen time period.   Now, three months later, I hardly take it off except to shower, swim, and charge it.

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