Inevitably, every Zumba® Fitness class that I teach has someone asking me the question "what's the black thing on your arm?"
Well, the "black thing on my left arm" which today is a gray thing for newer users, is none other than a BodyMedia®--an incredible health and fitness tool that should be your best friend for weight loss and weight maintenance.
I've been a BodyMedia (formerly know as bodybugg®) user for over 7 years since I discovered it back at my gym out West--interestingly, I haven't found as many people in the East who know about it, despite the fact that the contestants on The Biggest Loser have been using it for years.
I was intrigued with it because while you may know that a particular exercise actvity burns a certain number of calories, the BodyMedia learns your personal calories burn for the activity--which can vary significantly from a "standard" calorie
burning activity due to factors such as metabolism, individual effort and fitness level.
In addition, what about all the calories you're burning (or not burning), throughout the day? How do you count the number of calories burned walking around a giant big box retailer like Costco for awhile? What about chasing after your kid or pet? Activities like those also are burning calories, but are tough to quantify.
No worries, BodymMedia knows all.
So if you know your true calories burned for everything you do (or don't do every day)? How does it help with weight loss and weight maintenance?
To lose a pound, you need to burn 3,500 calories. So if you had a BodyMedia and it told you that you burned 2400 calories in a day, if you had that calorie burn every day and ate 1,900 calories, you would have a deficit of 500 calories a day, times 7 days would equal the 3,500 calories needed to burn that pound. If you were trying to maintain weight, you'd go for an equal intake of calories and calories burned. And the online program that lets you enter your food consumed everyday makes it wasy to see exactly what you deficit is each day while attempting to lose weight.
It's also very helpful to see how many calories you're burning, because you may be surprised to find on a given day that you're a lot more sloth than triathelete, and can then adjust your food, movement or both accordingly.
BTW BodyMedia will show a calorie burn of 400 - 700 calories per Zumba workout depending on your fitness level, metabolism and individual effort. Now that would be fun to track, right?
Zumba Love!
Melanie
Never Miss A Post! Subscribe To My List, Subscribe to my feed, Like My Zumba For Health With Melanie Facebook Page, follow me on Twitter and connect with me on LinkedIn
Melanie Jordan is an ACE Group Fitness Certified and licensed Zumba Instructor, Turbo Kick Instructor, ZIN Member and IDEA Membercurrently teaching Zumba in Western Chicagoland in Oakbrook Terrace, Lombard and Downers Grove, IL for class schedule CLICK HERE. She is also a Wellcoaches and ACE Certified Health and Wellness Coach. Melanie is the author of Have Your Cheeseburger And Keep Your Health Too! and blogs at The Healthy Food Review. When she's not teaching Zumba, Melanie heads up SunLoverPublishing.com, her media properties, publishing and marketing coaching/consulting company.
Copyright 2011- 2014 SunLover Publishing LLC, Your Healthy Life Made Easy LLC
ZUMBA® and the Zumba Fitness logo are trademarks of Zumba Fitness, LLC, used under license. This website ZumbaForHealth.com is owned and operated by Melanie Jordan, a licensed member of The Zumba Instructor Network. Please visit my profile at http://www.zumba.com/profiles/131676/melanie-jordan. There is no connection between Zumba and Bodybugg, I just happen to use them together :)
My company, Your Healthy Life Made Easy LLC is an affiliate for Bodymedia and Amazon, and will make a commission if you buy any of the products I've linked from their site mentioned in this article. However, I only recommend products I personally use myself or am sufficiently in the know about their quality, and your support of this blog will help keep great content coming your way.
Comments