Female Cage Fighter Weighs In with BodyMedia FIT Armband

Oct. 6, 2011 - PRLog -- Pittsburgh, PA (August 2011) – Five-foot-five Laura Marcusse weighs 117 pounds and needs to get down to 105 before her next mixed martial arts match in four weeks.   For the next twenty-eight days she will consume an average 1,057 calories and burn 2,267. It’s a respectable training program for a cage fighter preparing for a bout, but hardly a recommended diet for mere mortals.   She wears a BodyMedia FIT Armband to monitor her energy intake and expenditure every minute of the day.  

While driving to the gym after logging her high-protein breakfast in her personal Activity Manager on the BodyMedia website, data transmitted via Bluetooth® from her calorie counter armband (http://www.bodymedia.com/products/benefits/calorie-management)  to her iPhone shows her burning less than one calorie per minute.  But by 10:00AM, she's up to 3.2 during a conditioning session. As she works out, a pair of heat sensors in her Armband detects both her increased skin temperature and the temperature a few centimeters away from her body.  The Armband’s microprocessor compares the readings to calculate her heat flux and determine calories burned (http://www.bodymedia.com/products/benefits/calorie-manage...).  Two galvanic skin response sensors detect increased perspiration as she works over a 120-pound heavy-bag.    As she runs for 2.5-miles, her Armband’s three-axis accelerometer converts her speed and foot-falls into a burn-rate of 9.2 calories per minute.  Thirty-two times per second her BodyMedia FIT Armband senses nine heat, perspiration and motion indicators to calculate Laura’s energy expenditure.  Once a minute the processor’s algorithm analyzes and summarizes over 17,000 data points and sends them to the memory chip for subsequent analysis on either the BodyMedia website or by smartphone.

The morning of weigh-in, she’s 109 pounds.  She retires to the sauna until she makes weight.  Laura wins with a rear choke hold.  With an amateur record of two wins and one loss, she’s thinking about turning pro in a year or two.  If she does, she says her BodyMedia FIT Armband will definitely go along for the ride.

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BodyMedia has been unlocking and deciphering the patterns of the body since 1999. BodyMedia is the pioneer in developing wearable body monitoring systems designed to help people live healthier lives.
For more information, visit www.bodymedia.com.