GoWear Fit Band

Howdy All! About a month ago I bought a device called GoWear Fit and the day I started wearing it the questions began. Even total strangers would come up to me wanting to know what this thing was. So I figured I would write a quick little blog about it.

GoWear Fit is a device that you wear on your arm and it monitors your activity then tells you how many calories you burn. If you are familiar with the BodyBugg (like they use on the Biggest Loser) this band is the same thing. In fact they are both made by the same company, Body Media. The primary reason I chose GWF is because it is capable of monitoring your sleep (which has helped me tremendously, but I will save this for another blog).

So some might think that this is the same as a heart rate monitor, which also can tell you how many calories were burned...however, these are two completely different products. All a heart rate monitor does it take your heart rate then does a mathematical based on your age & weight to tell you the estimated number of calories that you burned. So what is the problem with that??? It is an estimate...not a precise measurement. These heart rate monitors can be VERY far off...as they were in my case. On the other hand the GWF band measures things like arm motion, number of steps you take, galvanic skin response, skin temperature and heat flux to get a more accurate count of the number of calories you burned. For example...when trying to find how many calories I burned daily I went to several different sources. I tried several different calculators online and a heart rate monitor, all of which said I burn anywhere from 1800-2100 calories a day. However after I started wearing my GWF band I found that I was only burning 1600-1700 calories a day. That's a huge difference when you are trying to drop a few pounds! No wonder I had hit a plateau. Almost instantly after I started wearing the band I began to loose weight because now I know exactly how many calories I can eat a day and still loose weight.

Now I have been wearing it for 4 weeks now and I think it is the most awesome little thing ever...so you might be wondering if there are any drawbacks and there is one...the price. The band alone will cost around $200 and if you want the optional display device it will cost you and extra $80. And this is not the end of the cost because there is a charge for the web service that is used to upload the data which will cost an additional $6.95 a month with a 12 month commitment. However if you do buy the display device you can pass on the web service and use a free food journaling site like sparkpeople.com. This is what I plan on doing after my 3 month free trial is up. However, besides the price I have found nothing else wrong with this little thing. In fact I have become somewhat addicted to it. I wear it almost 24-7 and have been amazed the data it has given me.