Santa brought me a Body Media Core armband for Christmas and I've been wearing it ever since. At first I just tracked calories burned and calories eaten. I don't really like their calorie tracker. The data isn't as complete as other trackers and I find myself entering a lot of data. Eventually I guess I'll have exactly what I need on there. I don't eat out much and I don't do processed food much, so my calorie tracking foods list isn't too vast.

But the one thing I'm loving about this is little toy is that I think I've found my RMR with it. I'm not a hugely active person, so knowing how many calories I burn (with a 10-15% error) in a day is important and eat is important. But looking at my stats for while I sleep and discovering that at my lowest level of activity (when I'm dead asleep) I burn 1.3 calories a minute, I think I found my RMR. 1872 calories a day.

Just knowing that number (if it's really accurate) seems to help. I feel like I can intelligently set a limit on my calories now, that how much I should eat in order to lose weight is not such a big mystery. Because I've been all over the place in the past, and online RMR calculators tell me that my RMR is 600 to 800 calories over that. I simply cannot lose weight eating that much, so the lower RMR makes much better sense to me.

Hoping that now when I cut 500 calories a day it'll mean that I'll lose weight at that 1 lbs a week rate rather than 1 pound a month!

Isn't it a great thing?! I have a Fitbit, actually, but I like it for the same reasons you like the armband. It's so nice not having to guess! In my case, I often get a lot of activity just in incidental walking throughout the day (usually 3-6 miles), but there are days when I don't. I can't keep track of that in my head and make good estimates. This gives me an objective measure -- it doesn't matter if it's 100% precise -- just a ballpark figure, so I know how much I can eat and still lose. (Or, if I'm not hungry, how much of a bonus calorie deficit I'm racking up with all that activity!)