Watch that Weight with BodyMedia Fit system using the Core Armband

By Cathy Margolin, Reviews Editor, reviews@NetSurferNews.com

Dec. 2,2012

Last year I embarked upon a goal to lose weight, and yes, everyone says that. But by the time I got the BodyMedia Core armband, I had lost 50 pounds. The big questions, was could I keep it within a set range? And to help monitor it and motivate me, I needed help. That is where the BodyMedia Core armband came in.

It is super easy and works great!   First I opened the box ,

and pulled out the armband. It did take a minute to figure out how to get the Core out of the armband- just press on the center of the Core and push and it will come away from the holder, toward the back.  I then set up an account on BodyMedia.com and connected the armband to my usb cable to my computer to charge and also synch. It charges very fast.

I used it for many months, and here are some screen shots of the activity, sleep patterns,

 etc

Here is what an average screen shot of the Activity Tracker looks like with Calories Burned, Calories Consumed, Calorie Balance, Physical Activity, Steps taken, Sleep Duration and Weight tracking.

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My best day ever was the following (note 11,986 steps) where I worked an event:

What I like also was that entering food was easy:

Another great feature was the monitoring of my sleep patterns:

Then here is a more detailed where you can drill down into the detail- steps taken, and also sleep duration- when you wake up or move too much:

You can also export it to Excel which I like since you can track yourself.

Overall the experience is a good one. After a free trial period, there is a $6.95 per month fee which is now monthly not yearly as previously, so it give you choices. I also loaded the BodyMedia Fit system on my Android phone and then I can enter food that way. They have an Iphone app also.

How does it compare to the Fitbit One?  The Fitbit is a bit small and fits anywhere , where the Core fits on your arm, but I have heard that the Fitbit is easily lost (falls out of the holder) and lists driving time as actions.  To be fair, I asked a friend who is a fitness instructor and she said that the motion, skin and air sensors are better in the BodyMedia (at 24 hour Fitness they call it the BodyBugg) and make it more accurate. The food database I felt was also much better, as one of my other friends complained about this food database with the Fitbit, and I had no problems using the Food database with the Body Media Core armband.

I would recommend the Body Media FIT Core armband system to anyone who want to keep motivated to loose weight or just keep it off.