This month I have been sporting a rather fetching arm accessory – a Ki Fit. I have been using it to see exactly how affective my new exercise regime is. It’s a sensor worn around the upper arm that monitors activity, steps and sleep. At the end of each day I upload the information from the band to my laptop via USB. It collates all the information onto a dashboard, to which I add a list of what I have eaten over the course of the day and my current weight. As a result, the dashboard is able to show me, in a graph, during what times of the day I was active the most (a session at the gym will come out much higher than my walk to the bus stop in the morning) and how many calories I burnt during that activity. It also calculates how many calories I consume compared to how many I burn to establish whether I am on a weight loss trend (you lose a pound in weight every time you burn 3,500 more calories than you consume). Interestingly I can see how productive my sleep is with a graph that shows me when and how many times I wake during the night. I know that I frequently sleepwalk, what is interesting is that I tend to sleep walk twice a night for 15 minutes at a time just after 4am. It’s the days following my sleep walking nights where I am less likely to work out as hard and hence burn less calories overall.

It is a subscription service from £99.99 per month or £268.55 per year. Whilst it’s not exactly cheap I have found it to be invaluable these last few weeks. To see my weight loss on screen is a great motivation and to be able to accurately quantify what sort of activity burns the most calories has helped me to tailor my exercise regime.

Visit the Ki Fit website here