Body Media

I signed up for the extra service of this metabolic counter through Jenny Craig. You wear a little electronic gizmo on your arm and it measures things like calories burned, amount of steps you take in a day, what level of intensity your exercise was, when that exercise was done, and how much time you spent asleep. You are suppose to wear the band 24 hours a day. It is recharged when you plug it into your computer to download all that information. It then can calculate any deficit in calories consumed vs. burned if you honestly enter in the food you ate for that day.
www.bodymedia.com

I have been wearing this arm band for 2 months. In that time, I have learned a few things. Like a goal of losing 2 pounds per week equals about 1000 calorie deficient that I have to maintain every day. And when I try to increase my activity, it does not really affect how much weight I lose. It is totally dependant on what I put in my mouth. Now, increasing exercise (and intensity of that exercise) might make more of a difference if I was less overweight and closer to my goal. But now, trying to walk 30 minutes in a day does very little for the final balance of calories burned vs. consumed.


This knowledge was a little disheartening. You watch programs like the biggest loser (or any other reality weight loss show) and see these people flopping around, sweating in puddles on the floor and you begin to think that exercise is the answer to weight loss. I have to admit that exercise plays a vital role in improving your health (creating a stronger heart, improving your immune system, decreasing your blood pressure, developing more lean muscle mass), but it doesn't seem to help me with my weight loss. Granted, I'm not going to (or ever will) work out 6 hours a day for even 1 month let alone 6 months or more, but in my overall balance of calories burned and consumed, it actually makes little difference.


Now the days that I work (12 hour shifts - walking and standing for a lot of that time), I can burn 700 to 800 more calories than days off where I'm hanging around my house. That is a significance difference. But trying to exercise for 30 minutes on my days off is not going to make much of a difference.


I came to these realizations perhaps a month ago. And have been depressed about the results ever since. I guess because this means I need to been vigilant about my diet. And I have never been very good at that for an extended period of time. So that is when I really stopped blogging. I have been thinking about this and I have come up with a solution (short term at least). I decided that if I can stick to my diet (really any diet that restricts calories) for 3 months, I can lose some weight and then just try to maintain that loss for a while afterwards (how long after, I haven't decided). Thinking about losing over 100 pounds - it's depressing. Thinking about dieting for 3 months - well, that's do-able. I like that I can see a light at the end of the "diet". I like that my goal will not be overwhelming.


So I have decided that I'm going to give my daily balance of calories consumed verses burned on this blog. I am the first to admit that reading how many calories I burned every day will be very tedious for you. But I'm going to do it. And let me tell you, it was really hard today not to go out and buy some junk to eat. Especially because I had yet to announce my intentions of being accountable this way. But I made it through the day without eating too much and with no trip to the grocery store (living in a building with a store on the ground level seemed like such a good idea when I moved in).



I would give you my balance for today, but there is still 3 more hours left in the day. I will still be burning calories, even once I sleep. So I will have to let you know tomorrow what the final number for today is. And if you have made it all the way to the end of this rambling post - yay! Please keep checking in on me for the next 3 months. I need to be accountable to someone. And 3 months - I'm starting to get excited about this....