First Impressions

OK, so this is a little late as I started using the Bugg last week. Still, I can talk a bit about my first impressions when getting the Bugg up and running and I can post about how my first week went later. So read on . . . .

The box the Body Bugg comes in is smaller than I expected - which also means the unit itself is smaller than I expected. I was pleasantly surprised to find it isn't as bulky on my arm as I thought it would be. (In fact, if I'm wearing long sleeves and the sleeves aren't tight, most people don't even notice I have it on my arm.) They have a quick start card that you can use to get things up and running quickly or you can read through the whole manual. But come on, who's really going to read through the manual when you've got this great gadget you can't wait to use? So I use the quick start card and set up my account online. The website prompts you to download some software so that the website and your computer are compatible. I didn't run into any hiccups with this process.

After getting the website stuff up and running, the program asks you to take a Food Questionnaire. Basically the questionnaire is trying to get at how much you like meat or vegetables or sweets. This information is used to create a meal plan you can use to help you lose weight. However, the meal plan is entirely optional. After the Food Questionnaire, the program asks you questions like what time do you go to bed and get up (so it can determine when you're sleeping), obviously it wants to know your height and weight, etc.

Once you complete the questionnaires, the program launches into some tutorials that I found to be both very helpful and very professional. Sometimes internet tutorials can be cheesy or give you information you already know - the Duh! tutorials. These were not like that. The program asks you the main reason why you are using the Body Bugg right now. Some of the response options are Weight Loss, Weight Gain, Performance Enhancement, Weight Loss/Performance Enhancement, etc. You can view all of the tutorials for each of these options to decide which goal is right for you. I workout 5 or 6 days a week and have a personal trainer. In addition to losing weight, I really want to increase my athletic ability so I chose Weight Loss/Performance Enhancement. The tutorial for this goal talked about how I not only need to work on monitoring my calories to lose weight but that I also need to be putting the right nutrition into my body to get optimal athletic results. Some of the information presented I already knew but the tutorial was a good refresher and clarified some things for me. Based on my goal, the program helped me set a ratio of fats, carbs, and proteins to try and shoot for with my food choices to help me lose weight and improve my athletic conditioning.

The last thing you do is play with the numbers - the program asks you how much weight you want to lose and how fast you want to lose it. Now, one could potentially get into trouble here by saying they want to pull in obscene weight loss numbers like a Biggest Loser contestant but the program won't let you pick a loss rate that is unsafe. I didn't push the limits to see how high the program would let me go but I'm sure other people have. I told the program I wanted to lose 50 pounds and I wanted to do it at a rate of 1.5 pounds per week. The program told me that at that rate, I would reach my goal of 50 pounds in August. So how does the program get me to my goal weight? Through the magic of the Calorie Deficit.

The program computed that based on my current height, weight, age, gender, and activity level, I should be burning roughly 2700 calories a day. In order to lose 1.5 pounds per week, you need to burn 750 more calories than you consume. This means if I'm burning 2700 a day, I can only eat 1950 calories to achieve a 750 deficit. Now this number can change based on how quickly (or slowly) you want to lose the weight. If you only wanted to lose 1 pound a week, you would need a deficit of only 500 calories a day, and so on. What's nice about knowing this number is that you can make adjustments throughout the day based on how your numbers are looking. For example, if I can't make it to the gym one day and it looks like my calorie burn is only going to reach about 2300, I can adjust the number of calories I consume (from 1950 to 1550) to compensate and maintain my calorie deficit. Conversely, if I had a number of pastries for breakfast and I know I'm going to go over my calorie budget for the day, I can try to be more active during the day to push my calorie burn higher to compensate for the poor food choices.

It's so easy to get obsessed with the different numbers and all the ways they can play out. Anyway, the main point is that the program sets up the number of calories I should be burning, the number of calories I should be consuming, and difference between them that I should be aiming for. That's one of the things I like about this program. You don't have to stick with certain food groups and stay away from others. It's all about the calories in vs. the calories out. After all this information is set up, I'm sent to the main screen (called My Results) and I'm off and running.

Overall opinion on setup: very easy and all the information was user-friendly. It took about 20-30 minutes including the viewing of some of the tutorials and it didn't seem like a process you could stop halfway through and pick up again later so make sure you give yourself enough time to get it all up and running.

Next post, I'll do what I've been avoiding: I'll give you all my nasty little body statistics so you can see my starting point. (Not that it matters cause I don't think anyone's really reading this yet anyway.) I'll also share some screenshots of the program and talk about my results from the first week and my first session with the Body Bugg coach. Until then . . . .

Missy