Lowering the Feed Limit

Okay, so it sounds like something you’d need to see a doctor for, but after having this thing for only two full days, I’m convinced it’s going to help me finally get a handle on this weight loss thing.

I first heard of the Bodybugg because I’m a Biggest Loser addict and this season (I think) I heard them talk about how the contestants all wore one and I saw a couple of them on the arms of people on the show.

I checked out the website and saw a little bit about what this little gadget can do.

I showed the information to my husband. He knows how much I’ve been struggling with my weight.

In 1999, I lost 40+ pounds doing the Atkins diet, under the supervision of a doctor in the Atkins Center in New York City. And just so you know, it wasn’t just unlimited meat and fat, and it was very restrictive for me due to my kidney situation.

Anyway, I kept that weight off for two years until I had my kidney transplant in 2001. Then, due to the strong meds I have to take, I gained it all back.

So, since 2005, when we moved to Baton Rouge, I’ve been trying to find a way to get back to my pre-transplant weight.

I’ve been doing Weight Watchers for three years and I love this program. I love the support of the meetings, I love the good nutrition information and the whole “This is a life style” approach to healthy eating.

When I did Atkins, I didn’t enjoy the “diet.” I enjoyed that the weight came off quickly and I had so much energy, but the idea of eating like that forever just freaked me out.

Never again have a bagel? Never be able to have a cupcake or muffin? And, frankly, the Aktins bars made me gag. (This was 10 years ago and things may have changed. This is just my opinion based on what I experienced then.)

The doctor I saw talked about eating this restrictive way for the rest of my life and I knew I wasn’t going to.

So, when we moved here, I took a couple of weight loss classes at our local Y and I never really learned anything new about food, but I learned about the cardio machines and I loved the group atmosphere – knowing other people who were going through the same thing.

And I did lose some weight with that.

However, our instructor got pregnant and stopped the weight loss classes.

I thought I knew what I needed to do so I figured I could do it on my own.

Well, as you can figure out, given this blog, I couldn’t do it on my own.

I stopped logging food, slacked off on the exercise and kinda gave up.

I realized I needed some kind of support. My sister-in-law was doing Weight Watchers so I suggested to my husband that I try that.

After joining WW, I got to -18 pounds at one point and I really wanted to work for WW. But I just, for whatever reason, couldn’t lose that last few pounds I needed.

I’m back on the program now, and I’ve been doing pretty well. For the last two weeks I’ve done better tracking and have lost.

My husband has been talking about getting me a Bodybugg for awhile, and Friday when he came home from work he gave it to me.

Apparently, he’d ordered it without telling me and it was at our front door and I didn’t know it.

This cute little electronic gadget straps to my upper arm, against my tricep muscle, and it keeps track of all the calories I’m burning all the time. It uses body temp, air temp, heart rate and other body indicators to calculate my calorie burn.

BodyBugg

Then with a USB cable I can download that information into my computer and it shows me, in 15 minute intervals, the number of calories per minute – on average – I burned at that time.

It can also show me how many steps I’ve taken. It’s interesting to look at the chart and see that I took three steps at 3 am while I was asleep!

Beloved likes to look with me and figure out how many calories I burned cleaning the guinea pig cages or going to Mass. He’s actually jealous now. Hee Hee.

Like other weight loss programs, I need to log my food and then the program figures out what my calorie surplus or deficit is. Of course, to lose weight I need a deficit. So far, for the weekend, I had an almost 2000 calorie deficit.

The neat thing about this is, I’m aware that it’s tracking the calories all the time so I want to be more active. I know that typing on the computer isn’t burning very much, so already today, I’ve folded a load of laundry and swept the deck, just to get a little extra calories burned.

Always before, when I was only counting points, I was dependent on how intense I thought an exercise was. I could ride my bike at home and assume it was high intensity, but as the monitor on the bike is broken, I don’t know how fast or how far I rode. I think I overestimated my exercise points sometimes.
With the Bodybugg I can’t really do that. On the other hand, WW doesn’t give you many exercise points for weight training but my informal survey seems to indicate that I work off almost the same amount of calories lifting as walking.

I intend to say with Weight Watchers because I love the support system and their plan is something you can live with. I like actually tracking calories rather than points, though.

So far, I’ve only had this toy two days, so I can’t say whether I”ve lost any weight using it. I do have a weigh-in in a little while, but this won’t be an accurate test, but we’ll see how next week goes.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 15th, 2009 at 10:20 am and is filed under Tracking, Weigh In, Weight Watchers, exercise. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.