Has anyone here had their basal metabolism measured by BodyGem/MedGem?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I keep seeing these ads on TV for a new product called BodyGem/MedGem by a company called HealtheTech.com that says that they’ve developed a handheld device that can measure one’s basal metabolism. I read through the website and found a local sports medicine clinic that owns one of these devices and offers the test for a fee of $75.00. I spoke to the lady at the clinic and she said that it basically works by measuring your consumption of oxygen over a span of 10 minutes.

Apparently, the spin is that if you know your basal metabolic rate, you can create a diet plan around the number of calories that you know your body burns. I’m wondering if anyone here has tried this out, and if so, has knowing that big mystery number of calories really helped with your weight loss plans?

2

Oh, my gosh! I was just looking into this myself.

I saw an ad in Sunday’s paper for BalanceLog, which is the software that HealtheTech sells to figure out calories burned/consumed. Checking the website I found mention of the BodyGem test.

I kept checking around, but couldn’t find anywhere how much the test was. Around here, it’s offered at Bally’s gym and some HealthSouth clinics, but nowhere on the site did it mention cost.

I saw on the software website that if you buy it, it comes with a $30 coupon for the test, which if it’s $75 makes it much cheaper.

Doing this led me to run a search on RMR calculators. There are several sites that ask your height, weight, sex and age. Then they spit out a base number of calories. I have no idea how accurate that might be.

I’m tempted, but I’m not sure it’s worth the money…yet.

3

Hiya scout1222! I’m glad I’m not alone. :slight_smile:

I’ve been working on my getting my weight down for almost 3 years now, and I’ve had a terrible time. Terrible to the point of not losing for months despite sticking to plans like glue. Tracking every morsel of food and minute of exercise. Seeing an endocrinologist to see if there was something physically wrong with me.

The reason I’m interested in the BodyGem (if I can be assured that it’s not smoke and mirrors) is that those online calculators that tell you how many calories the average person of my weight/height/activity level burns have never been accurate for me. They can only guess at your muscle mass and fitness level, any hormonal problems you might have (thyroid, PCOS, etc.). I’m sure the average it spits out fits the bill for the majority of people, it’s just never been on the money for me personally.

I saw on the website that they were offering a deal on the metabolic test if you bought their software, but honestly…if I know how many calories I need to be eating, Fitday.com is totally free and I’ve been using it for years. I don’t think there’s anything this software will be able to do that I can’t do for myself with Fitday, so it wouldn’t really be worth it.

If I find out anything else, I’ll be sure to post here…and I still welcome anyone with info or experience. :smiley:

4

Very true. And since the software is in the neighborhood of 50-60 bucks, well…

And I agree that personalized stuff is the way to go. Just like those “calories burned” readouts on the exercise bikes - just HOW WELL does it compare to what you yourself are actually burning?

Hopefully someone will have some experience with this. Anyone? Anyone?

5

My husband is a Physical Therapist at a clinic that has MedGem. He’s a huge advocate. I haven’t done it, although we have the software on our home computer and I’ve looked at that a bit.

He’s out at rugby practice right now, but if you all have any questions you want me to refer to him, I’m sure he’d be happy to answer.

6

C3, that would be great! I think that my basic question is whether this method is being generally accepted as accurate and useful by the medical community. I know that new tests/methods/products are sometimes jumped on as The New Final Answer before they’ve really proved themselves out just because they’re the hot topic of the moment.

I’m assuming that if he’s a huge advocate, he must have seen it used successfully to manage more than a few people’s weight loss efforts?

7

Okay - this is from him:

Basically, it was developed by a heart/lung surgeon out of Florida who spent 20 years developing/researching it. He started as a research scientist out of the University of Michigan. As a heart surgeon, he recognized obesity as one of the worst problems in health care today and developed the product to help combat obesity.

For years in elite atheles physiologists have been able to measure their resting metabolic rate. It was hugely complicated and called the “Douglas Bag Technique”. There was a formula developed about 70 years ago that would approximate your RMR based around a number of factors, wt, age, sex etc. The Douglas bag technique was very accurate, but the formula technique was found to provide similar RMR for people, but in reality they would have a VERY wide variation between people with formula calculated RMR’s.

The MAchine basically measures your RMR. It’s been studied to be statistically equal to the “Douglas Bag Technique”, the gold standard in this measurement field.

The principal is that if you know what your RMR is, it calculates your total caloric needs at rest. If you construct a diet knowing this, then any energy needs that you have above and beyond that must be found. The ready source of that is your fat stores.

So get the reading. Buy the “Balance Log” which is a very user friendly disc with 4000 food types on it all with calories worked out.

Right now I’ve done it with about 20 people. I’d love to tell you that they have lost X number of pounds, but as I haven’t done any tracking at this time, I can’t tell you that.

Having a Physiology background, it in theory is great.

As a final not, if you want to lose weight, EAT LESS. Weight loss is al about calories in and calories out. It’s simple in theory, but hard in reality. If any thing the readings and the balance log will educate you on the calories in your foods. It takes me 40 minutes on a treaddmill to burn off the snickers it took mo 2 minuters to eat.

Finally, these comments are mine, not my wifes, so if they aren’t great, don’t blame her. :slight_smile:
MC

8

Please forgive the resurrection of this thread!

I posted the OP over a year ago, but I never did get around to shelling out my $75 to have this test done. I continue to struggle with my weight loss efforts, and I was revisiting the idea of giving this a try.

So, I’m throwing the question out here again…has anyone in this community ever had this done? If so, did it help you develop a successful weight loss plan?

TIA. :slight_smile: