Armband Monitoring

My employer has a strong wellness program for employees including health-related lunchtime lectures, inexpensive fitness classes, health screenings on site, etc. Recently, they started a new program that is a team weight-loss competition. They have tried to structure it to focus on healthy, long-term changes by promoting healthy weight loss through better diet and exercise. They asked me, as someone who took full advantage of this program and lost about 100 lbs, to speak at the kick-off event. It went well, though I was a bit nervous and found that I forgot several things that I wanted to say while telling my story:

• That I had testing of my body fat using the BodPod ( an accurate way to measure body fat % ) fairly early on, which indicated I was above 40% body fat when I started to work . I have had a couple more done along the way, and the last one I had last fall measured my body fat % at 14%.
• My medications have gone from five required prescriptions ( most $50/month co-pay ) to two prescriptions ( generics- a free one and a $5/month one ). And those two are ones that I wouldn't technically have to stay on- based on my research regarding their long-term use by type 2 diabetics, I've decided that it's best to stay on those two for now.
• ... and a few others

However, part of that was the struggle I had with picking out the important things to say in the talk, and my rush to complete it before it got past the scheduled time. For me, my success in getting this far wasn't because of two or three things- it was a million tiny decisions and adjustments. And I give credit for being able to do those tiny decisions mostly to a few things:

• Talking over my decisions with a number of people around me, especially my wife. She's struggled with her weight and was working on the same kinds of changes as I. She had great feedback and information on any particular decision I was trying to make. Talking with someone helps you explore possible answers until you find the right one- even if their answer isn't the one you end up with. 
• Having specific, reasonable goals that challenge me and have a set deadline. If I had started with a goal to "eventually lose 100 pounds", I don't think I would have gone terribly far. I did have that general idea in my mind, but I had goals like, "Get my protein intake up above 15% in the next two weeks, while still eating healthy" and "Run the Turkey Trot 5-mile race next Thanksgiving at a pace of 10 minutes / mile or better". These goals had a deadline and a measurable goal that weren't easy but weren't beyond my grasp. These short-term, reasonable goals helped me keep making day-to-day decisions that contributed to the ultimate goal- a healthier body and lifestyle.
• Having great data to help me understand if I am progressing towards my goals right this second. I couldn't believe in things that calculated my calorie burn by, for example, having me say I ran for 20 minutes. How hard was I running? How does it know how hard my particular body had to work to do that? Granted, this could produce and estimate, but it was too easy to be way off through cumulative estimation errors. 

The data mostly came through the  BodyMedia Fit device that I found fairly early on. This device is worn on your arm all day long, and measures a number of pieces of data about your activity. It has been evaluated and found to be highly accurate. By using the display device on your belt or as a watch, I can see at a glance where I stand for the day with my activities. Using the "Activity Manager" software, I can log the food I eat and track my calorie intake. I can also set daily activity goals, and easily get feedback to achieve them. It even evaluates your sleep, so you know how soundly you are sleeping and how long each night- another essential to health and weight loss.
Thc BodyMedia company has recently release their latest version, which includes a Bluetooth-enabled version that will sync in real-time using your Bluetooth-enabled Droid or iPhone. I haven't spent the money to replace mine, but I will definitely go that way when I do. With the release of the Bluetooth device, prices dropped a bit, but it's still expensive to do the initial purchase- around $200, without the Display Device.
A couple of quirks / notes if you get one of these. If you use the display device in the wristband strap, be careful that it doesn't fall out of the device. After I lost it a couple of times (and had to spend $80 to replace it), I started using just a dab of silicone seal to make sure it didn't fall out. This is one thing that BodyMedia needs to fix, thought it's possible they have already done that. The other area of weakness that they had problems is in the velcro strap that holds the armband on your arm. The velcro would pull loose from the plastic tab long before the strap itself was worn out. After I had spent over $100 just on replacement straps, I had enough and complained loudly to their customer service. They said it was a known issue that they were working on, and they would send me another strap free. I've done that a couple of times now. In my opinion, these straps should last at least a year.

The big positive here is Customer Service. I've gotten upset at BodyMedia a few times in this process, but once I got a Customer Service rep on the phone, they have always made it right. Just remember my final tip in this area: call them on the phone. I've had less responsive answers from email queries for some reason.
Putting all of these pieces together worked for me. If you decide to make a similar change, consider what will work for you in a similar way. Get solid information, set challenging but achievable goals, and get feedback as often as you can on how you are doing in your progress towards those goals.

Finding time to work out

For years before I even started to work on changing my life, I would say "My health is one of the most important things in my life- if I don't have that, everything else goes away". The problem is, I didn't really act like it, because I would also say, "I don't have time to work out". Let me talk for a minute about a few thoughts from my current perspective about those two statements together.
First, it doesn't just have to be scheduled workouts. I take the stairs instead of the elevator. the time difference is nothing these days, and was very little even when I struggled more with those stairs.When I go to lunch with people from work, those of us taking the stairs ( for three flights, in my case) beat the ones on the elevator every time. For a while, I had decided that if I extended my stair climb of  three flights of stairs a bit, I could probably get a significant gain in my daily activity. I generally have at least four trips on the stairs in a day- coming up in the morning, going down and back up for lunch, and down at the end of the day. For a little over a month, I decided that I could manage to travel up the nine flights of stairs to the top of my building every time I took the stairs, then go to my destination. It was slow and hard for a while, but then I got used to it and it wasn't so bad. And all of those extra trips didn't take up enough time in my day to even notice- I had the time to do that. You can always find this kind of time, if you want to.
Secondly- if health is my priority, then exercise has to be a priority. Improving diet is important, but I do believe that exercise is even more important for health. To get the health results I want, I have to have an active life that includes some vigorous exercise. So how can I say I don't have time for a workout? There are 24 hours in a day- if exercise is as important as I say it is, there's something else that I could give up to do it. I can get up a little earlier, eat a little later, something. So, if I'm saying I don't have time to work out, I'm really saying that it's not a priority. Once I understood that, it was much easier to really make the changes that gave me workout time. It was still hard, but I started acting like it was an actual priority.
I still had to listen to my body, and make sure I was getting my sleep and meeting the other obligations in my life. But I found the time, and you can, too. Just think about what you are trying to accomplish, and why. you are trying to do this. Then you can easily act like it's important- because it is.

Starting up the blogging once again

Early on in this journey, I came up with the idea of setting up a blog to post some of my thoughts, discoveries, and ideas that were a part of this trip towards my healthy life. It took me a while to get started, and as you can see, it's been a little bit spotty along the way. Life catches up, work makes demands on my time, and eventually it gets away from me for a while. Despite all of that, I keep coming back to it. I've learned so much along the way that I always have a hard time answering the inevitable question: "How'd you do it?".
I always think that the answer is not too hard, and my initial answer is a short list of ideas:

• Control the portions of what I eat - not the automatic "starve myself" kind of reaction that people often think is the only answer, but just make sure I'm not eating the whole pizza and stuffing myself. You don't really have to walk around uncomfortable because your body is crying out for food it needs, just move away from automatically eating whatever happens to be in front of you
• Eat a healthier diet - I think most everyone knows at least most of what that is, and you can keep track of what you are eating and refine your diet as you go. Mostly, this just means eating more fruits, vegetables, and fresh food and less packaged, "fake" food. The more processing, the more likely it isn't the best food for you. 
• Become more active- everything from going for a walk or run to scheduling workouts into your week to sports to choosing to walk the stairs instead of taking the elevator. Just work on balancing out the common lifestyle that we have- sitting most of the day. 

That much is the easy answer- but it's not the complete one. Every one of those involves a million little tiny decisions to find what is right for you, and make little tiny incremental improvements when you can. Explaining the ways that I have found to do that always ends up with a lot of "oh, and here's another thing..." kinds of recollections. And I'm afraid that those often may overwhelm the person who asked me the question in the first place. So, back to the blog.
I've posted some of this information previously, but there's so much more that is useful stuff. I need to document that somewhere, think it through, and share it. So, here we go once again. My goal at this point is to do more than one posting a week, each focusing on a single part of the story, a resource, or whatever single topic is of interest. I hope to share some useful information, and we'll see if I can do a little better at sticking with it this time.
Before I leave you this time, let me add in my other general tip. In all of the changes that you are making to your eating and your exercise/activity, find what you love. You may not love the first time you do a particular exercise, but think about it and give it a real try before you give up on it. And if you don't love it after giving it a good chance, find the thing that you do love. Eat the foods you love that fit into your eating plan. Changing your diet to regain your life isn't about what foods you give up- find the foods that are healthy for you that you love, and enjoy them. Let yourself have those, and try to add more foods that you love to your life. In the midst of all of this, I've found that I like running a lot more than I ever would have thought, and it draws me to it. I keep coming back to thinking about another run that's coming up or another goal I'd like to achieve. I've discovered that I love berries- raspberries, blackberries, blueberries. I eat them almost every day, and I believe they have a positive impact on my health. My wife found that she didn't really like riding bikes- until we found a different bike for her and it changed into something she loved. We've enjoyed a number of bike rides together and it's a common activity for us when the weather's nice. She enjoys her walks a lot more now that she has loaded up her iPod for the walk.

Find those things for you, and choose them. Adding things you love to your life is a lot of fun. Get back your life by making those choices, and have some fun. Good luck!