So those who use the Body Bugg, do you hate the stupid calorie counting program as much as me?? It seriously looks and acts like something from the late 90s. And I'm irritated that they expect me to pay to have access to it, when the program itself is really lacking. I can find better calorie counting programs out there for free!!
I am thinking about using SparkPeople, since I know that program really well, but how do I incorporate this into the Body Bugg program? I still want to be able to see my calorie deficit. The only thing I could think would be to adjust their meal plan to be as many calories as I really ate, but don't care about inputting it into their program and rely on Spark People for my calorie counting needs. This is really irritating though. Because it is money, and I'm starting to wonder if after my 6 months I even WANT to keep buying a membership.... :P

I'm not familiar with the body bugg. But I personally don't see the point of tracking ones calorie deficit. It is next to impossible to do so with any kind of accuracy, there are just that many variables.

Besides, my calorie intake never, ever changes due to my outtake given that I'm not a marathon runner or even close to it. Any exercise, movement or activity is a bonus to me in the calorie deficit department. If I exercise/move more, it doesn't allow me to eat more. To me, the vital and only useful information is the calories that I'm taking in. The calories that I'm consuming.

I don't have a BB, but I have a GWF and there is an option to "estimate caloric intake" or something and I just enter my calorie number there You might have something similar. I use sparkpeople also btw.

I had a BB and Now have BMF (formally GWF)
I created a food called Just a bite for 25 calories, I made it for my trips to costco and wanting to try a few things I had a way to track them. anyway, sometimes at the end of the day if I was tracking some place else like lose it on my phone I move my calories over in one lump sum. sometimes I use it for a meal that I have to guestamate or things I just get to furstrated to find in the data base.
I agree that the food data base is not great but it is important to track your caloris in even if it is one lump sum to be able to understand what works and does not work for you in your weigh loss journey.

Don't give up on it, work around it to make the program work for you. If you can get past the food loging issues the BB is really an amazing tool for weight loss and maintainace.

Pink - I totally agree - the calorie counting portion stinks. So what I did was counted in fitday (or use your sparkpeople) and at the end of the day, I just entered 1 custom food. That way it showed my cals for the day and what I burned and then I could see my deficit.

Robin - Yes, the body bugg does not track your activity with 100% accuracy, that's impossible. It is also impossible to track your calories with 100% accuracy. There are always variables in everything. The REASON someone would would track their calorie deficit is not so that they can eat more, it's so that they can burn more fat. You can only restrict your calories to a point. Like you said, your calories do not tend to change from day to day. But you can burn calories through activity. And you can add as much of that as you want to. Let's say someone wants to lose 2 lbs a week. That's 7000 calories that they need to get rid of. Let's say they need 2400 calories a day to survive (BMR). If they restrict their calories to 1600, they have a deficit of 800 a day. That's 5600 calories that they have gotten rid of. To get rid of the other 1400, they will need to burn them off through exercise. It's hard to figure out how many calories you burn in day. Some days are active, some are not. Sometimes you exercise, sometimes you don't. The bodybugg tracks that (to the best of it's ability) and that way you can make sure you have burned that extra 1400 calories. No matter what the margin of error is on the bodybugg, at least it gives you something to shoot for and keeps you consistent in your activity, a place where some of us have trouble.

See my sister and I are doing the body bugg's together. We were debating, but she was buying them so I just went with whatever she decided. Now I wish we had gone with the GWF or Body Media...I like how it measures the sleep efficency and that feature of estimating your calories. So far I haven't found anything like that on Body Bugg's website....*sigh* I wish I could just send it back and ask them to exchange it for the body media since they are the same company. :P

sleep efficiancy is not available on BB so you won;t find it on the site. also the BMF shows Moderate and Vigorus activity which the BB does not.

BB gets a lot of Hype because of the biggest loser. But Body Media makes the BB exerspy, dot fit, and kifit (uk version?)

I would wear mine while I slept, so I got a good night measurement. It doesn't have that sleep thing though.

I love my BB but I think they really needs to listen to their customers and change some things. The food logger being one of them. Another thing is make it waterproof! A lot of folks swim and do water activities. Also the software itself is not kept up with updates. In order to upload I have to tell it to run older java three times just to get it to open. I hate it.

I read the FB page and I see the same requests for changes over and over and they have a new bug coming out this month and I have not seen where they have addressed and of these issues. They are pushing the fact that it will have bluetooth. That is not important to me the other issues are.

rumor about the new bugg is that it is going to be bluetooth compatable.
Now that would be great if they did not have a ton of other issues that the consumers want. I think it elimpinates the need for the digital display because you can get the read out on your phone. I wonder if it will drain the phone to have the bluetooth constantly on and I wonder if it will interfear with the bluetoo headsets etc. I have a DD so It would not be a reason I would want to upgrade.

I would be interested in a HR function but I think the BB will not go there, they have too many other issues like tough user interface to deal with. although I think BMF will upgrade with a HRM freature in the future.

Personally having had a BB and now a BMF, I would not recomend the BB to anyone looking to get one of these divices. but because if TBL it has a huge following (why I bought a BB) they don't care about what the customes wants and never seem to address the issues of the consumers.

I totally have to agree. I am either going to return mine I think, or sell it. I find myself not even wanting to wear it because it's not helping me lose weight really. I was hoping it would be a tool to help me keep going...but so far not. Its very frustrating to see all the complaints and no answer from BB....they really need to fix the program first then start finding cool features to add to it. :P *sigh*....

Carly, can I ask you how exactly you would do that? Would you just create a food that was as many calories as you would eat, or did you add items until it added up to the calories you ate? I'm interested in this...

PH,
I made a food called just a bite (JAB) which is 25 calories, when I want to just add calories and not a food, I will use this in multiples!

I was thinking about a BB months ago, or something like it so I tried a blackberry app that was free called fatsecret, I love it. The website is great too I find.
The food database is huge as far as I've been able to tell, you can enter your own foods, meals, etc.
It tracks your weigh in's how ever often you want, tracks your estimated calories burned (includes sleeping, resting, driving, desk work etc for your body weight, again all estimates of course) and shows you what deficit you have combining the two.

I really like it, I love that it's on my phone, and who can argue with free So glad I didn't end up buying anything