Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Armband Woes

So after Christmas I finally got my Jillian Michaels BodyMedia FIT armband. Since then I've developed a love/hate relationship with it. 
Love: all the data feedback and all the things it tracks: calories burned, minutes of exercise, whether that exercise was moderate or vigorous, steps taken, sleep duration, sleep efficiency, and more. 

Hate: it tracks most of those things, most of the time, but not reliably. I tore up a 40 min training session at 8 yesterday morning, but my armband picked up nothing. Later, I did 50 min of Zumba at full force-my armband tracked 30 min of activity, but the majority at a moderate (walking) heart rate. It did however give me a few minutes of walking credit for pacing while on the phone with my sister. :-P Don't get me started on when I go to cycle class. It literally doesn't track during that time. At all. I looked it up online, and it's a known issue on the mfr website. Something about arm position during this activity.They suggest repositioning the armband during spin classes. Well ain't nobody got time to remember that. Plus, I've got this horrible ring around my warm from it chafing after only 3 days of wear (I  have only used it sporadically due to my annoyance with the unreliable nature) and the Velcro isn't super grippy so sometimes it comes loose. I paid $150 for this thing. None of these issues are ok.

It might sound like I hate it more than I love it, but that's not exactly true. I want to make this relationship work, because the Device has a lot of great qualities. I think though, that I'm gonna have to get a dedicated heart rate monitor to get a better idea of what I'm really accomplishing. 

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