Bodycomp News & Views Issue#8 October 2010

In this issue:

  1. Bodybugg
  2. Local partner: Training with the Endorphin Junkies

 

Endorphin Junkies

Vancouver is not a city that lacks gyms and fitness centres. I think that outside of coffee shops and pizza places, the urban fitness centre is one of the most common street corner sightings.

What is unique is a gym filled with highly educated, unpretentious fun trainers. I've been working with the Endorphin Junkies for almost two years scanning body fat and muscle mass as part of their standard fitness assessment. Their use of Bodycomp scans as well as functional movement screenings and rigorous fitness testing sets them above most of their competition. If you are looking for an energetic, friendly and professional fitness centre give the fine people at Endorphin Junkies a call.

EJElements: 604 568 5548

Suite 101, 511 W 7th Ave Vancouver

 

 

 

BodyBugg:


One of the ways that I help clients lose body fat is by estimating their calorie needs by using a formula that takes lean tissue mass and physical activity level into account. This helps me to estimate the food requirements for clients, but it is prone to error from subjective descriptions of activity.

Enter the Body Bugg - I discovered this item on a tech website and was fortunate to have their Canadian rep come to my office for a visit and to discuss the capabilities of the system. The Bugg is worn on the upper arm with a little elastic strap. When in position it constantly measures your motion in three axis as well as skin temperature, differential temperature and the galvanic response (sweat) of your skin. Apparently all these figures and some crazy math produce a 95% accurate or better measurement of your actual caloric expenditure. This is huge!

The data is offloaded to a computer or iphone so you can see how many calories you burn per day, or even per hour or per minute doing specific activities. Now if you're anything at all like me, this will probably cause you to move more and treat the system like a game. I wonder if I can burn 10,000 calories in 24 hours and so on. It's like getting real-time fuel economy from your hybrid car - like it or not, you will start driving more efficiently with that extra information.

I'm going to pick one up for Bodycomp as a Christmas present to the company. If I decide that the system is useful and motivating, expect to hear me suggesting them to clients. I can already accurately measure your percent fat and muscle mass. Your food nutritional value is easy to figure out, but the actual burn had always been guesswork. I'm hoping that this tool will help motivate users and help clinicians figure out why those with stubborn fat loss are not getting results.