110 days of GWF data!
 

Okay, well this is interesting! I've been wearing my Gowear Fit armband (Bodybugg) for 110 days, and I've been tracking my food on TheDailyPlate for each of those days. I just loaded everything into a spreadsheet, and here's what it came up with:

Since I've been wearing it, I've had a total deficit of -86,607 calories. That's an average of -787 calories a day. In those 110 days, I've lost 19.2 pounds. Interestingly, that means that it's taken me an average of -4,500 calories to lose one pound. I think it's supposed to be -3,500 for a pound. So either my armband is off (I seriously doubt it), my food tracking is off (possible, but I'm pretty careful about it!), or it takes me more than -3,500 to lose a pound. Or maybe a combination of all three! Interesting....

And yes, I'm a huge nerd! :D

Okay, I just did some more calculations, and if we assume that -3,500 = 1 pound, I would have had to have under-estimated my food by an average of about 190 calories a day. That's entirely possible. And actually, before I got my food scale, I probably was doing exactly that with my Cheerios and potatoes and such. Hmm....

Edit: Ha, and look at that... if I add up just the 3 weeks since I've had the kitchen scale, the average is -3,472 per pound. Hooray for science! :D

Very interesting data!

Are you happy with your armband? Is this the best choice? It sounds as though it would be very motivational. Any advice for me? I'm thinking of taking the plunge. CJ

I am curious about this armband too!

I just got my armband yesterday and I have to say so far it's a huge motivator. As long as you're accurate with logging your food (and now you can log it right on their website) it charts out everything. I'm hoping this band leads me in the right direction since there's no more guesswork.

That's cool data!

For Science! Huzzah!

I want one of those bands but I can't justify the cost right now.

Oh yeah, I definitely love the armband! There's a huge thread over here that I've posted a lot in: http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=160280

If you're motivated by numbers and data and stuff, and you don't mind paying the hefty price tag, then yeah, I think it's very helpful for calorie counting. It's been as important for me as my food journalling, and it makes me look at exercise more like an athlete would, not as the lazy couch potato I was. :) I've gone from doing "couch to 5K" to training for a 10K to training for a triathlon while wearing this armband, it keeps pushing me to see what else my body can do. :)

I think it is worth every penny that it cost. I am finally starting to lose weight again. I might not be bikini ready ( though I don't think I would wear one anyway) for my cruise in July but I will look better than I did a month ago. I hope one day they make one that combines the features of both Body Bugg and GoFitwear into one armband.

Your math and number crunching sounds like something my brother would do. He is working as an actuarial (sp). I think he got all the brains in my family. I get into numbers too but I like to take life a little more in stride. If the scale stops moving and the body stops reshaping, I am guessing that is when I would want to know all the numbers and figure things out. But for now.........

That is so cool that you did that though. Science and math can be very interesting! keep going on that weight loss!

So I'm really curious. How do you combine GWF or BoddyBugg with calorie counting? Do you aim for a specific deficit or a specific calorie count a day. For instance right now I eat 1500 calories a day more or less. If you ate 1500 calories then realized that you had a really hard working day and burned 2200 would you eat 200 more and the following day if you had a lazy day and only burned 1600 would you only eat 1100 so you kept the same deficient of 500 a day? Thank you!

Wow! I love your number crunching. Now I want a bodybugg. :D

I'd never heard of these things before! I've been looking them up and am totally going to save for one now. I love crunching numbers :)

Yep, that's exactly what I do! I use The Daily Plate to track my food, so every evening I upload my GWF data, take my total burn for the day (I estimate the last few hours of the day, it's easy cause I'm sitting or sleeping the whole time), and plug it into TDP as "manual exercise". That shows me my "net calories" for the day, which I try to keep at -1000 each day. Realistically it varies quite a bit, but that's my goal. Sometimes I upload the armband earlier in the day to get a sense of how I'm doing, since I don't have the external display wristband anymore (I lost mine, boo).

So I don't really have a target amount to eat each day. I can see from my spreadsheet that my average over the last 110 days has been 1,600 calories a day, but it depends entirely on how active I am. If I'm sitting on the couch all day, then I know it's going to be an 1,100 calorie day... if I go for a good run and then sit on the couch the rest of the day, it'll be about 1,400, and if I go for a good run and then putter around cleaning the house or walking around town the rest of the day, it might be 2,000. I like those days. :D Last week I actually burned 3,400 calories in one day!! Good thing, too, cause I went to a beer festival that day! :D I love being able to do that kind of thing. I didn't feel guilty about the beer or the junk food at all (omg, I ate doritoes!! wooooo!!) because I knew that all the running and walking I was doing that day would balance it out. Mmm, balance. :)

I've had my BB for 3 weeks today and I love it so far. My goal is 1000 calorie deficit and hopefully 2 lbs lost each week, 1st weeks was 1.6 lbs and last week was 1.8 lbs. I weigh in on Sundays so don't know about this week yet.

I am new to counting calories as I started out on WW and just switched. I'm starting to measure my food more carefully since I didn't quite hit 2 lbs each week so far and I think that will make a difference.

I download when I get home (and usually a few other times earlier) but at that point I know what's for dinner, etc. so after I eat if I'm still not at my deficit I walk while I watch TV and lift handweights as i walk. My hubby and dog look at me like I'm nuts, but it makes a huge difference. This makes me move so much more than I was before.

I highly recommend either the BB or GWF to anyone. As far as I can tell they're the same pretty much.