Go Wear Fit!

[Shadowpup]

Heather, it seems to depend on the exercises. With steady-state cardio, such as a long bike ride in moderate temperatures, I get very close readings. That's true also for heavy-duty gardening and the like - though I like the GWF rather than the HRM for gardening, because it is so much easier to protect the device! On hot days this summer, I went with my HRM because my GWF was showing a big spike in energy expenditure - and I think it was just due to my body having trouble dissipating heat on those days.

With short intervals, half a minute or so, I don't entirely trust the GWF, and I go with the Polar. That's because when I look at the energy expenditure/met graphs for the two, the graph for the Polar makes more sense - it shows the climb up, then the steep drop off, building from a solid base. The GWF sometimes drops off altogether in between intervals.

But the two are close enough together on most things that I don't think it's a problem. Early on, the cycling was way off (very low) on the GWF, but they fixed that. The one that's truly broken is horseback riding - I get step points for each stride But that's not a typical exercise.

I really get a kick out of overlaying the Polar workout graphs.... IMAX 2, turns out that some days I scrimp on the blasts, or used to anyway, until I got the new Polar and caught myself at it Some days those peaks just didn't get up where they belonged! But if I work hard on the blasts, then a CardioCoach 2 and IMAX 2 are about the same despite length distances. I personally cannot put out as much effort on Step gymnastics as I can running, biking, elliptical - I see that clearly in the graphs. The peaks go up for the blasts, which are simpler, but the basic 'workout' shows less intensity even when I am doing what I think is my best. Those of you who are better at step will probably have different results. Insanity Plyo is by a hairs breath the highest in mets per minute for me. I've burned most total calories with a CC on an elliptical (6), and I've hit my highest HR on a CC also (4, 6). I put that down to Sean's coaching . STS meso 1 Legs gave me quite the burn, too! I also discovered that Kettlebell Extreme and Newport weren't burning as many calories as I thought ... Of course, I'm not really doing those for the calories.

Did you find that the GWF helped with your sleep? My 'percentage' went way up. I'm not spending any more time resting, but have gone from 80 percent efficiency or lower to over 90. I can feel the difference, too.

 

[FiddleFit]

ShadowPup - You really ARE the techno-junkie, aren't you? LOL! It sounds like you're having a lot of fun with it all. How has the GWF sleep efficiency feature helped you improve your sleep quality? It's only feedback from the night before; you must have identified some kind of problem behaviour and worked to change it? What was that?

Cheers,
Sandra

 

[babindy]

Hey Everyone
How does CC compare with IMAX2. Just out of curiosity. I have just gotten into CC and all the fun there and was wondering how it compares. My heartrate monitor showed that I had burned 1100 cal when I did CC8 last time. IMAX2 is usually at about the same but I don't know whether to believe it!

Heather - I can't comment on IMAX2. But when I do CC8 I burn in the 600 calorie range. I have a 70min premix (from morningstar I think) that I can get in the 700 calorie range. CC is the highest 'straight' calorie burn for me. My intensity is probably less than yours. I run/walk on mostly flat (outside) and use speed as my interval factor. When I do non-strength Cathe I burn in the 500+ calorie/hr range.

 

[lightening16]

Thanks Brenda and Shadowpup!
Can't wait to get mine.... hopefully my DH took me seriously that that is what I really want. Guess I will be able to see for my self soon enough!

Fiddlefit - I have been checking your blog and your test very interesting!

Thanks Heather

 

[lora-kate1]

Does anyone know whether you can still use the gowearfit display once your subscription is over? I am really only interested in seeing how many calories I burn during different activities so the web based support isn't why I would buy it. Also paying a monthly rate just to see how many calories I burn seems a bit crazy and expensive over the long term.

Thanks!

 

[Shadowpup]

Hi Sandra, sorry for the long delayed response - I was on travel.

ShadowPup - You really ARE the techno-junkie, aren't you? LOL! It sounds like you're having a lot of fun with it all. How has the GWF sleep efficiency feature helped you improve your sleep quality? It's only feedback from the night before; you must have identified some kind of problem behaviour and worked to change it? What was that?

Cheers,
Sandra

Yes, absolutely! My picture is next to techno-junkie in the dictionary I really do enjoy playing around with measurements ...

Anyway, re sleep, the GWF let me use quantitative feedback about my sleep patterns and the things I was attempting to do to improve them. I started with a baseline of about two weeks, until the band felt completely natural and I knew what my typical sleep patterns were. Then I tried various things (one at a time) from the usual expert recommendations on how to improve sleep. Not everything worked. Caffeine had no effect, eating time or amount didn't matter. I actually found that strength training late at night always improved my sleep, and cardio would - if it was a day when I was fretting over work. The biggest improvements for me were in keeping the room darker, and by listening to favorite podcasts or music whenever I was travelling, so that I'd always have a familiar noise in the background. And, getting up in the night and moving around a little while, then going back to sleep, has been more helpful than staying still.

A person could accomplish the same result with a sleep diary, perhaps, but this was fast and easy to do. For instance, on the music, I picked a typical biz trip and just made sure to turn on my ipod rather than the hotel radio every night, and then compared my sleep averages to previous trips... it was immediately obvious it helped. Same thing with covering up the light sources in my room at night.

Lora, I don't think that the display is at all connected with the subscription. OTOH, I'm noticing differences between the calorie count on the display and online - I think that the improvements in how they calibrate the GWF are showing up online but there's no way to change the way the device computes them. It doesn't matter so much if you are only wanting to look at two days in a row, though. You might want to email the company. They've changed their name/software to BodyMedia, it appears.

 

[NRG Woman]

Just chiming in

I have had my GWF for about 6 months and have loved it. While I haven't lost any weight yet (several rounds of prednisone have actually packed on 14 lbs) I have gotten some wonderful info from it. First I have learned how calorically expensive it is to sit down. If I spend the day doing chores I can burn more calories than if I spend the day sitting down and then have a "great" workout. So I have definitely changed how I structure my days. I think in the long run this will have a great effect.

What to me has been the most interesting thing is the sleep function. I have had sleep troubles for most of my life. I have been to many sleep doctors and not really had good results. Often I feel my entire life revolves around chasing elusive sleep. We even have all of the lights in our house on dimmers so we can start dimming them at the appropriate time for me to start to get into "sleep mode". After watching my sleep patterns with the GWF I was able to figure out what a couple of nights in a sleep center couldn't. I wake up every 10 minutes or so. Now I have good data and like the above poster can change one variable at a time to try to get larger chunks of sleep. I really think this is the last piece for me to get my health back and get back to my real life.

And one more note. When I went through airport security last weekend I totally forgot it was on and had no problem. So when you travel you don't have to worry about taking it off to go through security.

For Christmas I am planning on getting one for DM. I think she is also going to be shocked by the whole sitting issue. While she has better wo's than any other 60yo I know, but her lifestyle is mostly sitting. At least I know it is something she really wants and will have a score on this gift.

Shayne

 

[NancyAZ]

NRG Woman, the sitting thing was also the most revealing thing to me. I couldn't figure out why after I retired a year ago I was gaining weight -- well, I knew why to some extent because of my diet, but not to the degree that I was gaining. It just didn't make sense. Then I realized that while I did have what I considered a desk job I was still moving quite a bit throughout the day. My movement dropped considerably with my retirement, which was demonstrated very well with the GWF. I now make a conscious effort to move more throughout the day.