GOLDEN VALLEY, Minn. -- Meteorologist Belinda Jensen and other KARE 11 employees have a new, clearer look at their lifestyles after wearing a high-tech body monitor.
"I am loving the information," Belinda Jensen said.
That info. comes from the BodyMedia FIT armband that Belinda has been using day and night for several weeks.
Inside the armband
Worn on the left triceps, the device contains four sensors that measure things like body motion, temperature and heat flux. The data is downloaded to an online activity manager where it is used to calculate, among other things, sleep efficiency, steps taken and calories burned.
Prices for the armbands vary. A search on February 24 found the bands on sale for $150 through the Costco website.
"It gives you the exact feedback you need to evaluate your lifestyle and make easy doable changes," fitness trainer Chris Freytag said.
Chris has been using the technology since last year. Her enthusiasm for it prompted Belinda to consider strapping one on too.
"I thought wouldn't it be interesting to get a group of people and see what we are all doing?" Belinda explained.
So, in late January, Chris helped Belinda and four other KARE 11 staffers get set up with a BodyMedia FIT. Before long, they were getting a whole new look at their lifestyles.
Calories in, calories out
"As a person who likes to work out, it was actually interesting to see how many calories I was burning per day," said KARE 11 meteorologist Jerrid Sebesta.
A regular at the club, Jerrid's armband shows he burns an average of 4200 calories a day.
"My height was around 5900 one day," Jerrid said about his calorie count. "I went to play basketball twice that day."
If you take time to enter what you are eating into the Body Media's online activity manager, the system also compares calories coming in with those going out.
"For people trying to lose weight, this is critical," Chris added.
"I was not aware of what calories go into everything," KARE 11 accountant Jill Trippel said.
Turns out a lot of us are just like Jill.
"There are actually a huge number of people who underestimate their calorie intake, said Angie Moeding, a clinical dietitian with Fairview Health Services. "They have gotten completely distorted, our portion sizes."
Not only do many of us underestimate our calorie intake, we also tend to overestimate our calorie burn. The combination can make it difficult to lose weight.
"Logging my calories really made a difference," Jill said.
Jill's work has made so much of a difference that she has already been able to put six pounds in the "loss" column. She had hoped to have ten off by her March vacation, but has now upped her goal is 15.
Motivation to move
"Knowledge is power," Chris said.
Chris' readings showed that her desk work as an author was bringing down her calorie burn.
So she has ditched her desk in favor of a standing work station.
"Talk about an ah-ha moment. It's burning an extra 300-plus calories a day for me and that is money," Chris said smiling.
KARE 11 administrator Nancy Ringstead has had similar success. After an hour behind the wheel, she used to have a day behind the desk. But now she is getting out at lunch and meeting her "steps taken" goals.
"It has kick-started me," Nancy said. "Now I take a walk. Yesterday I hit 15,983 (steps), which was awesome."
In our experiment, it seems the more they know, the more they want to go.
"If in the afternoon, I take the dog on a walk, I can add 4,000 steps," Belinda said. "It helps everything."
The sleep numbers
Although the daytime stats are intriguing, perhaps the most interesting information is what Chris, Belinda and the others are finding out about their nights.
"Hello, you are not sleeping enough," Chris said about her data.
The armband's sensors measure when you are lying down and when you are asleep. Sleep is graphed on the activity manager as a bar. The longer the black bar is on the screen, the more efficient the rest.
"A couple of nights it looked like a bar code," Jerrid laughed.
Jerrid and his wife Emily are new parents. His son Beckham's sleep schedule is making for some restless nights.
"I was lying down for nine and a half hours and I was only sleeping for six hours and 50 minutes of that," Jerrid said of one example. "And it was all broken sleep, which is not my style."
KARE 11 News anchor Kim Insley's sleep stats are even worse.
"I found out I'm probably averaging four hours of sleep a night. Sometimes less than four hours," she said.
"We're a sleep deprived nation," said Dr. Michael Schmitz, a sleep psychologist in the Behavioral Sleep Medicine Program at Allina's Abbott Northwestern Hospital.
He says many Americans are not devoting enough time for sleep and there is emerging data that suggests that can have a significant health impact over the long term.
"One of the things we're learning is insufficient sleep can affect glucose metabolism and regulation. This can affect our ability to manage and maintain weight," Schmitz explained.
He says some of us can get by with five hours, but most should be getting seven to eight hours a night.
For Kim, who comes to work by moonlight to be ready for KARE 11 Sunrise, there is some good news in the numbers.
"My sleep quality, when I am sleeping, is sometimes better than I think. So that's good," Kim said.
An afternoon nap helps too. But even then, Kim's sleep numbers pale in comparison to Belinda's.
"I'm a good sleeper," Belinda laughed. "Solid -- I'm just dead to the world."
Not only is Belinda sleeping soundly, she is burning calories too.
"I love knowing that I am burning 500 calories during sleeping," Belinda added. "Those seven and a half hours are so beneficial for me in so many ways. And this is proving it to me."
That, Chris says, is the beauty of this technology.
"It takes the guess work out of your metabolism," she explained. "The more you know about the way you live your life, the better you can take care of yourself."
Find more information about the BodyMedia FIT on the company's website.
(Copyright 2011 by KARE. All Rights Reserved.)