If you’ve taken on a diet and exercise regime, sometimes the hardest part can be staying on top of all the things that you try to track—from nutrition to exercise, there’s a lot of information to juggle! Enter the BodyMedia FIT LINK, an armband that keeps track of how many calories you burn in a day, tracks your exercise and keeps track of your nutrition.
Out of the box, the unit comes with the armband, monitor, USB cord and directions. It’s easy to charge and set up the unit, and the LINK also connects via Bluetooth to your smartphone so you can keep track on the go. What I like best about the app is that it analyzes your nutrition and you can check it no matter where you are.
The band is easy to wear, and you can wear it all day under your clothes, though the manual recommends wearing it no more than 23 hours per day. The unit also cannot be submerged in water, so it can’t be worn in the shower or swimming.
According to the BodyMedia website, wearing a monitor like this increases your likelihood of success by three times, and I can certainly see how. It’s motivating to check the app and see how many calories I’ve burned by going grocery shopping or taking part in everyday activities that keep me moving. It’s also motivating in a different way to see that the armband logged that movie marathon we had one afternoon as a very long nap…not too many calories burned there.
Logging your nutrition may take some time to set up—though there are many common foods already loaded into the database, a lot of the things that I would like to eat did not come up as already loaded. It only took a few seconds to add in the nutritional value of a new food, though, so that is an easy remedy.
I do wish that the armband would track heart rate; as I previously stated, my heart rate tends to go up quickly, and I have to monitor it regularly when I’m working out. I’ve yet to find a combination workout tracker / heart rate monitor that works for me, and it’s the one feature that I would add to this product to make it perfect.
Want to win a BodyMedia FIT LINK? Click here to enter and one lucky reader will win a unit of their own!
The deadline to enter is Monday, December 10, 2012 at 10pm. Good luck!
Fine print: The BodyMedia FIT LINK armband with Bluetooth connectivity is $149 (available online at www.bodymedia.com or at Best Buy, Target or CVS) and requires a connection to the online activity manager ($7/month; first 3 months are free). I was provided with a BodyMedia FIT LINK armband to test and review. All opinions of the product are my own.
