I'm wearing the BodyBugg today and using their web based tracking program to track my calories. I've already discovered a couple of things that are totally not cool. Before I go with my not cool list I thought I'd say something positive. I can't imagine using this thing without the digital display. You have the option of wearing it either as a watch or a clip that I currently have hooked to my shirt tail. I like that I can see my current daily burn at a glance... which I should point out is a little lower than I expected (that might explain a few things right there). So far I am really liking the burn tracking aspect of this thing.
What I don't like... well, that has to do with the food tracker. I used WW eTools for over two years and without a doubt, their tracker is better. The issues I have with the BodyBug food tracker are:
- The existing food database is rather small - I've had to enter five things manually already... and that's only been through lunch on the first day. So far The Perfect Diet tracker has been my favorite with regard to database size.
- ...which leads me to my next complaint. When tabbing through the fields to enter nutritional information, the "zero" in that field should highlight automatically. That way you can simply key in a number without having to manually highlight the zero to make it go away. Otherwise, 2 grams of fat might register as 20 by mistake... not to mention the added time to highlight every field manually. Of course, might not be a big deal if I hadn't had to enter the nutritional information for five items already.
- When entering a new food, you can only give the serving size in grams or fluid ounces. I don't mind it that much I guess but there should be an additional section where you can enter the serving size in number of pieces or slices or ounces or cups. I highly doubt most people will measure out 100 grams of frozen berries - no, they'll grab a measuring cup.
- Unless I'm doing this wrong, it appears that you can only enter meals in the order they dictate. I would suggest that the programmers take a peek at either eTools or The Perfect Diet Tracker for tips on how a food log should function.
- Overall, I find using their food tracker to be tedious - which is a shame considering the company requires an online subscription (fortunately ten months came with the Bugg).
- I'm tempted to use The Perfect Diet Tracker instead of their food log because it's more user friendly... and is prettier to look at... yeah, it matters to me.
As of right now, I'm going to give the food tracker a chance but I'm not "loving" the functionality of that aspect. Back on the positive side, I need to go do some kind of physical activity so I can remotely have a chance of hitting my calorie burn for the day... sitting at this computer is not going to cut it.