Weight Watchers 2017 Open to all! (2,204 views)

Hi café latte... I guess we're walking this thread  by ourselves.

  I'm no expert on monitors  currently available. I have no interest in calorie burn or syncing the monitor with anything else, so I'm not real motivated to spend money to upgrade anything. I record the time and intensity on the WW site, and write it on a paper calendar. looking at the paper calendar with month after month filling up is a much bigger motivator than anything else.  the   tm, elliptical and spin bike  give me a calorie burn but it's  not always  reality based so I   don't use the data  anyway.       

I would look at  things in person if you can.   take apple watches... expensive and    big,  I wouldn't want one.    I don't care about a lot of the  functions  people seem to want lately.     cousin and wife have fit bits  they spent $200  each  for, but  it doesn't help them  exercise.  I mainly want time and distance.   I wouldn't mind heart rate  but it's not worth $300  to me.    hope you find something that  works for you.  

 we had a trip to LA for a wedding last week.  off   program for a bit.   not exactly dropping pounds quickly.  I'm  down about 4 from December. 

I have been  coming in at 30 points plus or minus 2 every day but I don't lose on that without a lot of exercise. so am holding   steady. the trip was pretty awful, I am not a fan of southern California for anything so it was only to support SIL.  DH and I  aren't big partiers so although it was good to see family, it was way too much money to throw away on a trip we didn't like much. whatever. done!  last time we will do that.   everyone is  now married  finally.  

my birthday is coming up soon and I asked DH to find me some sort of monitor that isn't overly expensive or too hard to use. I'd be happy with a replacement polar wrist watch if it  is still accurate with existing chest straps . will see what he comes up with.    it would be interesting to see what my heart rate is while road or mountain biking too. our weather has been totally miserable... cold and rainy day after day no, not snow, but  tedious. no outdoor activity for a while.  

cycling isn't all the same   we have a spin bike for indoor work, and then road bikes and mountain bikes.   road biking  is ( for me)   longer mileage. speed and hills or a head wind make it more difficult.   a mountain bike can be more difficult  with hills and rough terrain but usually mileage is much less than road biking.  a spin bike can be hard too. I would like to get a decent HRM to see how hard I'm actually working. DH is getting me something for my birthday, so I will be surprised and hope whatever it is ... works! my birthday is the end of this month so I don't have to wait long. I'll report back     on how    it works.  

we always go at it pretty hard.   we did a 2 hr mt bike yesterday that was 6-7 miles. some of the hills are very tough going up, but then it balances out by being almost no effort to go back down.     on a road bike we would go closer to 25 miles in 2 hours. I think the  overall energy output is similar.

Hi there caffelatte. I still check the thread regularly but   we are on our own here.    my birthday is tomorrow and I suspect DH got me a new Polar watch to go with existing chest straps. I thought he might get me something more elaborate but I don't think he did. I am not into logging and syncing everything or recording calorie burn so a lot of the monitors are wasted money. I record on a calendar  and on the WW site for activity.  it's kind of 'one size fits all" and it doesn't!  I do a lot of weight plus cardio workouts often followed by an abdominal workout and nothing really fits  from the activity list. I call it "circuit" and put in total time and let it go at that. We did a couple hours of loading and unloading a couple cords of wood, and although it was a lot of work, again no category fit very well.

ETA  people I know with fitbits don't pay attention to the  info after a short time. it doesn't seem to motivate them to walk more or do more.  they  just wear it like a wristwatch and don't pay attention.  maybe my  family is a bunch of lazy people!

I'm still tracking and staying close to 30 points   plus/minus  a few points but not losing. I never use  extra points, just record when I go over.    we've had a very rainy several months so  less endurance activity which helps me lose. it has to stop raining someday! but not today.... it's raining. really rainiest in 40 years right now and not stopping any time soon.  this is not downpours but   overcast, showery, and wet surfaces.  I need a break from it!   we have a couple  less wet days coming up end of this week.

thank you! Happy birthday to your husband too.

   yes, it was a nice day. we went mt biking at the local tree farm. 2 hrs 10 min, 7 or so miles. the hills I thought were tough to begin with are a piece of cake now. really, rip right up them. big improvement in my biking skills and endurance. not bad for 69 yo. I am a respectable mt biker.  not someone who will ride down stairs and railings or other fancy tricks, but   I can ride moderate terrain  and crank up some significant hills. my "new" bike is  part of the reason.   had it for a year and a half or so and my skill level jumped up after a few weeks on it. shifts so nicely, hydraulic assist brakes. Love it!

as I thought, DH got me a polar watch/ HRM. I wore it yesterday and it works fine. I haven't tried the watch with my older chest straps.   I wouldn't  wear a chest strap all the time, but if you wear it while you work out and then take it off, it's fine. like I said earlier, I'm not interested in monitoring 24/7. this is a way cheaper option than one of the more fancy monitors that gives calorie burn, and syncs the data monitors your sleep and on and on.  I don't care.

the Polar set up is just "OK" with my spin bike computer. the spin bike occasionally picks up my heart rate. uses that to calculate calorie burn. it only comes on sporadically and then sticks at whatever that number is, and I thought the chest strap would transmit the number consistently. it shows on the wrist watch, but not on the bike computer.  so I don't know where the problem lies. not a big enough deal to replace but disappointing.

 I've  used the chest strap/wrist monitor for a road ride and a mt bike. seemed accurate although it is really easy to bump the button and put it back on clock mode.  it is  not easy to reach over and  fiddle with the button while  riding!     what I found was even riding 20 mph, really cranking on the road bike, the most my heart rate went to was 127 and mostly it was around 115  riding at  safe legal speeds on a fairly level trail.. .     I thought I was working harder than that, but compared to some exercises, cycling is pretty much  legs only. I do it a lot but I guess I've adapted and conditioned and it's not hard enough! hills on the mountain bike  ...more like interval work...  it went higher, mid 140's which is what I want, but I had trouble bumping the button  and going back to clock mode. so a semi success on the monitor. it is the lowest level  one they make and is all one button. I think it was  $40  so not hundreds.    I'm not sure I'd buy it again  but I also didn't look at other models.

My understanding is that you need to be exposed to an allergen at least once  to get sensitized  before you can react.    once you are sensitized,  another exposure can   trigger the allergic response.   a bummer if after all these years you are allergic to something you enjoy. I agree you should get it checked out as if it's something you need to avoid, you need to know exactly what it is.   

I'm  allergic to one antibiotic as far as I know but  am careful to avoid it.  I'd taken  it many times before, and then abruptly   I reacted   definitely...saw  huge itchy hives popping up all over.     so much for that   group of drugs!   Hope you get    some definite   information so it's clear what you need to avoid.

the polar HRM is not fancy. it will  give me enough information to be worth   it for road rides and mt biking. I don't plan on wearing it all the time.    no way to tell why it  doesn't work well with the spin bike.  I suspect the spin bike computer is  the issue.  I haven't tried it with the treadmill or elliptical but they always worked with the older polar devices.  I've been doing this a long t ime and I never intended to  track and record everything.

caffelatte I guess it's  only us.   I got the ironman HRM & watch in the mail. it works for heart rate, not sure how it will be for things like calorie burn. it has a setting for "bike" so I'm hopeful. some things are easy to set, others more complicated.  got it from my nieces DH, and he got it from a friend who moved on to something else. free is fine, and mostly I want heart rate. if I get calorie burn  and something like  steps or pedal strokes, that would be fine too.

interestingly, we went on an easy bike ride with cousin and his wife saturday. we are trying to get them into riding regularly. it was an easy 15 miles for DH and myself. at about mile eleven, I  saw the flash of a bee... it hit me on the side of my mouth.  I spit to get rid of it. so my tongue came out a little. Yep, stung on the side of my tongue. yeouch. it hurt and swelled a little but went away pretty quickly, within less than half an hour. talk about unlucky! so I am not sensitive but it was a nasty way to be sure.