Posts Tagged ‘exerspy’

AMAZING Weight Loss Story Unfolding Before My Eyes

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

Meet Allan Hoffman, 35 years old, starting weight 555 lbs, uses a wheelchair to get around, has a fractured vertebrae in his lower back and it’s fair to say he had a very difficult childhood. He’s struggled with his weight forever, battles depression and over the past 10 years his weight has gone from 305 to 555 lbs. Talk about having to overcome some challenges! His doctor said he should have gastric bypass surgery to lose the weight. Enter the exerspy and the dotFIT team.

It must have been fate because Allan reunited with a half-brother he never knew he had, who happens to be one of dotFIT’s team members.  Allan gets an exerspy, a few phone coaching sessions and starts using the dotFIT Me program to shed the weight. With his physical limitations, we had to start slow. Fast forward three months and he’s dropped 62 pounds. Here’s the strategy we used:

  1. Identify WHY you want to lose so you stick to the process. Allan’s motivation was twofold – 1) meet his biological father face-to-face for the first time this summer and 2) see his 6 year old son graduate from high school. He keeps a picture of his son on his computer to keep him focused.
  2. Set realistic and achievable goals. Allan’s ultimate goal is to weigh 210 lbs so we set him up to lose 2-3 pounds a week.
  3. Give him visible targets to hit daily so he sees progress every day.  Using the dotFIT Me program an exerspy – his daily calorie burn target was approximately 4300 calories (remember, the heavier you are, the more you burn). His daily calorie intake goal was about 2800 calories. When he hits those targets, he loses weight. Period.
  4. Log everything you eat. Becoming conscious of what goes in your mouth is the first step towards making better decisions and Allan was prone to mindlessly eat.
  5. Increase physical activity. Do upper body exercises using cans for hand weights and leg lifts as he sits in his wheelchair. Work up to 5 minutes of physical activity per day. The exerspy tracks this so he knows whether he reaches this daily goal.
  6. Eat more fiber-rich foods. Get 25 grams a day to start and track in using the online food log.

As you can see – a few simple adjustments repeated over time has produced AMAZING results. No diets. No drastic workouts or magic cleanses. Just practical changes anyone can do and a bit of encouragement and guidance along the way. To follow Allan’s story go to our Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/fitnesshealth and check this blog for updates.

–Kat Barefield, MS, RD
Registered Dietitian for dotFIT

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Transformation of a Figure Competitor — Week 3

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

This has been a very interesting week! One of my latest photo shoots with Tina Woods has landed a picture in the latest Fitness & Physique issue on stands now! Check your local stores that carry a large variety of fitness magazines to find it! I was thrilled to be sporting fitness wear with the dotFIT logo!!!!

I also became best friends with my Exerspy. I find it very interesting to see my calorie burn throughout the day. It seems on a normal day without teaching classes I burn about 2500 per day. The days I teach classes it’s around 3000 per day. When I say per day, it’s a 12 hour period. I also wear it while I sleep and after uploading the information, it actually shows at what time I got up during the night to go to the bathroom and how many steps it took me to get there!!! Pretty cool, right? I will try to give updates during the week to give you more
detailed readings. Now that my diet has changed a bit and my cardio has increased, there should be some changes. As of right now considering I take in 1600 calori

Jodi Braun

Jodi Braun, dotFIT Sponsored Athlete

es, I am burning almost twice that per day! WOW! I can’t wait to see the results as I get more intense with my activity closer to show time!

My body fat did not change much from last week. Yes, I was a bit disappointed but menses had to do with it along with the fact that at a certain point your body reaches a homeostasis and change is needed. The calipers cannot differentiate between holding water and fat tissue, so many times Warren makes changes by eye.  My calories remained the same but bread is out. My light English muffin changed to oatmeal for breakfast. I still have my egg whites but half of my banana was cut out as well. For lunch I was eating turkey on light whole wheat bread. This has now changed to 4 oz of chicken breast with small sweet potato and my whole apple became 1/2 as well. Between this change in my diet and my increase in cardio, there should be a change this week. I was doing 25 min of cardio 4 times a week. Now it’s 5 days at 30 minutes.

Changes in my body are very minimal but I can see some striations coming back to my shoulders and chest :) I love watching the changes take place. It’s so scientific!!!!  So, I’m sure some of you are wondering if I’m feeling tired yet?  No, not yet. I’m an even 15% body fat and I usually don’t start to feel it until 11% but each journey is different.

My dead lift this week was pretty good. 185 for 5 reps. My personal best is 200 lbs for 2 reps. I hope to surpass that by 50 lbs before the competition but we shall see. I squatted 205 for 7 repetitions and I have been feeling it the last 2 days!!! LOL  Usually on our leg day we will do leg press and hyperextensions as well.  I wanted to share with all of you that I was born with 2 hernias and have had them both repaired within the last 15 years. I am very careful with my lifting and concentrate on form and breathing all the time. It seems many athletes have had injuries in the past but can still push through with them. Just perform cautiously and you will be fine. For those of you that have had injuries or do now, I know it’s
frustrating but just know that muscle does have memory so whatever you think you have lost will come back stronger. Rest is good and we all need rest for us to improve. We don’t like to admit it but it is true.

So, I have reached the 12 week point! Let the games begin!!!!!! I’m focused and determined!

–Jodi

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Weight Control – The Facts Make It Easy – Part II

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

Visibility allows flexibility – do it your way

To reiterate, nowhere in Part 1 did we tell you what to eat or do to lose weight.  All we have said is “know how many calories you burn, what you want to weigh and when, and then you’ll know how many calories you get to eat.” And by now you know that the more you move, the more you can eat.

When it comes to accomplishing a weight or body fat goal, all that matters is that you start. What you eat and how you burn calories is no one’s concern but yours. So, on average, just burn more than you eat until you reach your goal. It’s not a program – it’s your life combined with the right tool to tell you all you need to know. That tool is the exerspy.

Here’s what one new user who’s struggled with thyroid disease and weight gain has to say about exerspy:

“I’ve used countless food logs, work out logs, and am an avid health freak.  I didn’t really like online programs I used and the fact that I needed to use multiple programs (one for calorie/nutrition facts, spreadsheets, work out logs, etc.) made it an arduous task.

“I started using the exerspy on Tuesday of this week and it has been such a blessing!  I LOVE IT! You have done an extraordinary job on the equipment, online program, food log, tracking mechanisms, etc.  I couldn’t be happier.  I wear it all the time and am thrilled about the prospect of what it can do to help me reach my goal/target weight and fitness level.”

What’s her motivation? It’s simple — she’s able to easily fit the program to her lifestyle.

Side note: Every adult knows the difference between good and not so good food – and of course your calories should be made up of better foods – but hey, you figure that one out because at the end of the day, only the difference between your burn and your consumption determines your weight loss – NOTHING else.

The same formula applies to all of us, including those who eat well and exercise religiously but still have that pesky little spot of body fat that just won’t go away. The answer is the same. Repeat after me, “Eat fewer calories on average than you burn (do it your way) until it goes away”. And always bear in mind, you CAN’T chose to lose fat in from a specific place on your body, like your thighs or stomach.

The Undeniable Facts of Weight Control:

  • Individual total calorie intake is determined by personal activity, body statistics and goal including desired timeframe. The foods that make up your allowed calories can be structured to improve health & performance.
  • One single fact determines the rate of weight/fat loss: the average daily calorie deficit. This is defined as the difference between how many calories you burn and how many calories you consume. Weight loss should proceed at a pace that does not compromise health or performance.
  • Exercise is intended to improve your body structure, function/performance, longevity, visual appearance, etc. Exercise also increases daily calorie burn and helps you maintain your desired weight.

You must be the creator of your program or you won’t be the master

The only way you will own a behavioral change is if you create it. Start anyway you can, sticking to this simple rule: burn more calories than you consume, on average, until you reach your goal. Just follow the number.

The good news is that “one good turn deserves another”, meaning, as your body changes and you start to look better, you will also do things better. BUT the first turn has to come easily and on your terms, or you’ll take a second step to failure. Square pegs don’t fit in round holes – you need to own your program because it fits the life you choose, not a life someone else chooses for you. You want to be lean but you need to get there your way. Want maximum visibility and complete flexibility? Welcome to dotFIT Me.

Ready for more? Join us for any of our free webinars and you’ll not only learn valuable information about weight control but you’ll also get a sneak peak at dotFIT Me and exerspy.  Just go to www.dotFIT.com/webinars to register for the next session.

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Weight Control Must Become Second Nature

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

If you think you can control your waistline without trying, I want you to take a look around and keep these two things in mind: 1) nobody gets fat on purpose and 2) everybody gets fat at some point in their life. Yes, even if you aren’t now, you have a greater than 90% chance that you will be overweight at some point in life– and that’s a fact.

So, can you control your waistline without trying?  No, not in today’s world.

“Only at the brink of disaster do we evolve” – and let’s hope that’s not necessary

As overweight and obesity continue to climb in the face of well known dire consequences, the message society is sending to researchers is very clear: due to 21st Century demands, the majority of people will not make lifestyle changes. In fact, the small population of successful weight losers had to reach a point of being near death or in search of a new mate, and I would argue that’s not a position in life you want to reach. Therefore we have to figure out how to make life itself keep us fit. How do we live in harmony with the “landmines” of everyday life, such as stationary jobs and entertainment, our need to quickly acquire tasty food (fast food), and exercise not being intuitive or fun, or just too time consuming?

In a nutshell, weight control for adults living in the modern world doesn’t happen by accident, but weight gain does. Adults don’t curb their eating automatically to get or stay in shape because humans simply are not designed to ignore good food or to move around unnecessarily.

Daily changes in body fat are easily overlooked
These daily changes are so tiny they’re not measurable, which means we can ignore it when weight goes up and then we’re frustrated as we attempt to lose it. We let weight gain continue even though we eventually see and feel it happening. We certainly don’t continue to let weight increase on purpose (most people don’t think it’s attractive or healthy). Our belated signals include moving up a notch on the belt, an increase in clothing size, seeing ourselves in the mirror, and stepping on the scale and finding that the number is significantly higher than it was when we looked and felt better.  Whether it’s visual or numerical, we are being semi-regularly warned. And THAT’S the whole problem. Controlling our waistline is not innate (in fact it’s innate to grow our waistlines) and warnings are too slow thus excusable. So we ride the train to being overweight another day – out of sight, out of mind – and the next day, and the next day . . . and the next stop?  Fat City.

We have the same problem when we try to reverse weight gain. Weight/fat loss or reaching our desired look happens too slowly for our liking, especially because the process is usually painful and unsustainable. Most, or all, of a dieter’s lost weight is gained back and as a society we continue to get fatter. This proves that current weight loss methods or treatments are virtually useless against our 21st century environment.

If you can see it, you can lose it –and do it your way

All of this proves that you need to be able to, at any time, see your gains and losses no matter how small. Because at the end of the day, we can’t or won’t manage what we don’t see! But give us instant visibility to our daily body fat fluctuations and we can fix it on the fly – without pain! Pain happens when you can’t see anything and have to fix it later.

Enter the exerspy:  allowing life itself to be your training partner

It’s the first and only program that “talks to you,” informing you when to stop eating or start moving so you can look the way you want. Every minute, every day, whenever you want, the exerspy will keep you on track to your goal by giving you the ability to see fat loss and gains before they happen. This way you always know when to take one less bite or move another few steps. When weight loss is the goal, there is nothing more motivating than to SEE it every hour, everyday or any time you want. Seeing it in real time also allows action any time – YOUR WAY.

Simply put, when you know how many calories you burn, you know how many calories you can eat. The more you move, the more you can eat. Our life becomes our fitness program: eating what we want, moving or exercising the way we like. The exerspy is your training partner because with exerspy, life is exercise and YOUR food is your diet.  Ready to get yours? Check with the dotFIT club near you or order online at www.dotFIT.com/exerspy.

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Eat, move, lose. Period.

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

One common weight loss myth that drives us crazy here at dotFIT is the starvation mode myth.  It goes something like this: Eating a diet that is too low in calories will cause the body to go into starvation mode and not burn any calories.

People love this myth.  You know why? Because people, including me, love to eat. But here’s the fact of the matter: Severely cutting calories will cause your metabolism to adjust slightly, allowing your body to run on fewer calories, but it doesn’t prevent fat loss if you’re truly burning more calories than you’re consuming.

You’ll sometimes hear the trainers on the T.V. show The Biggest Loser alluding to this when they tell their contestants how important it is that they not eat fewer than 1200 calories a day. That’s a pretty low calorie diet, and the contestants are working out at least 5-6 hours every day. If they eat less than that they won’t “go into starvation mode,” but they won’t have the energy they need.  The same holds true for the average person trying to lose weight.

If you cut your calories too much, you become less energetic. As a result, you’re less active. That is, you do fewer daily activities, and then you burn fewer calories overall. Crash dieting with excessively low calorie intake leads to low energy levels, so you burn fewer calories all day and work out less intensely. This leads to increased hunger, which in turn increases the chances of rebound and binge eating behavior. In other words, you’re likely to move a lot less and eat more. The result? You hit a plateau which easily misinterpreted as the result of a “damaged” metabolism.

The point is not to lose weight too quickly by drastically reducing calories because that method is generally not sustainable. Mainly because it takes extreme and unrealistic changes in your diet to get results and when you drift back to your old eating habits, the weight returns.  The Biggest Loser is a reality show, but it’s not reality.  The contestants are closely monitored by a staff of medics, physicians and trainers. And if you could follow up with past contestants, you would find that most of them haven’t been able to maintain the weight loss they achieved on the show.

If you need to lose weight, eat less, move more and forget about starvation mode or slowing metabolism. Remember that a calorie out cancels a calorie in, no exceptions. Research shows that most people think they’re eating less than they actually are, so keep tabs on your calorie intake by using a food journal.

And if you really want to see how many calories you burn every day, along with your steps, minutes and type of physical activity, and how efficiently you sleep at night, check out exerspy at www.dotFIT.com/exerspy.  The research and development team at dotFIT that created exerspy and dotFIT Me is the same team that created the bodybugg® system featured on The Biggest Loser. By using exerspy and the dotFIT online program, you can see the calories you’re eating and burning, which takes the guesswork out of weight control. It’s not your metabolism that’s preventing you from losing weight – it’s NOT knowing your numbers. Take control, see your numbers and get results.

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Why exerspy?

Friday, September 18th, 2009

When you wear something that kind of looks like an MP3 player on your arm all the time, minus the headphones, you get asked the same question a lot.

“What is that?”

And invariably when I tell people what it is – a device that monitors your calories burned, steps, physical activity and sleep efficiency for the purpose of weight control – the response is always the same:

“But you don’t need to lose weight.”

You know what I want to say?  “EXACTLY! Wearing this little thing on my arm makes me aware of how many calories I burn so I know how many calories I can eat in a day without gaining weight.”

~

Like most people, I have a busy life. I commute 60 miles a day for work, I have responsibilities at home, and I don’t always have time to work out, or sometimes I just don’t want to. Using the exerspy doesn’t make up for exercising, but it gives me wiggle room. It keeps me informed and helps me make smart decisions about food – something that I didn’t learn from my parents or in school. The fact of the matter is that life – and weight control – is much harder without exerspy.

Before I had access to my calorie burn data, I struggled with my weight.  When I finished grad school, I got my first job and woke up 6 months later to find my pants too tight.  The weight gain seemed sudden and inexplicable. I went to the gym 4-5 days a week and did my best to eat healthy foods.  I didn’t know what else to do so I started skipping meals, thinking it would help me lose a few pounds, but all I got was frustrated and really, really hungry.

What had changed was my life.  I no longer walked to class two or three times a day or bounced up and down the stairs of my house to do this or that while writing papers.  Instead, I was stuck at a desk for hours and hours, only burning about 1600 calories a day and getting fat.  I had no idea what was really going on, and I started feeling like a victim of my own body.

A few years later I found bodybugg, which was created by the same team that now makes the exerspy. It changed everything.

The best thing about using a device like exerspy is how empowered you feel once you understand the relationship between calories in and calories out.  You realize you have complete control. It’s right there on the screen in front of you when you upload and log what you ate for the day – you burned X calories, and you ate X calories. The difference between the two is ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW to control your weight. Before exerspy, I didn’t know the difference between those two numbers or what it meant.

With access to this kind of info about your body, metabolism is no longer a factor, nor are carbs or late night eating or genetics or any other weight myth you’ve ever heard.  Diets don’t work because they require you to make drastic changes that you can’t maintain throughout the ups and downs of life.  With exerspy and dotFIT Me, your lifestyle is your fitness plan.  You eat what you want, you move when you want, and you make adjustments.  I don’t know about you but that’s a plan I can live with.

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