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Notes for Your First Week
The first 7-10 days is a learning period for the M2. DO NOT GO GUN-HO THIS WEEK. Just do what you normally do day-to-day. The M2 is learning about you and your activities. It will be assigning you to a lifestyle based on what you do this first week. Your goals and targets will be based on this lifestyle. If you go gun-ho during this first week, your targets may get set at un-realistically high levels!
Your first week, the M2 uses the lifestyle “inactive” with a goal of moving up to “light”. The targets it comes up with should therefore be easy for you to achieve. Don’t get lulled into thinking you are doing great. After the 1st 7-10 days pass and the M2 assigns you into a lifestyle based on your actual activity, the targets will be upped to match the level you were actually performing in. Targets for your 2nd week could jump up radically.
Your goals, targets, charts, etc will be further influenced by the choices you make as you set up your profile. For example,
- if you choose a “weight loss” goal, the “calories to burn” and “calories burned – personal best” will be adjusted at the beginning of each day to include your “BMR” (basal metabolic rate, or resting metabolic rate, estimated based on age, weight, height, and gender).
The target/burned/left to burned numbers in the results section will show the calories you need to burn via exercise.
- if you choose a “stay fit” goal, the bars in your energy chart will show your performance index rather than your calories burned.
You will see the most consistent information if you synch your M2 to your pc at the same time each day. Preferably this will be in the evening, when you can see the results of your day, but early enough that you can still do something to meet your goals if you just are not there yet. If you have selected items under “my activities” (make sure to click “save activities” after making your selections), those items will show on your results page with the number of remaining minutes you will need to conduct one of them to complete your daily gauge for that day. (Daily Gauge is the first button push. Doing one of the daily activities for the time shown should get you to a completely green circle for the day.)
TO ADD YOUR CURVES WORKOUT to your activities, choose Curves (or fitness equipment, then strength circuit). If you like to socialize while you workout, sometimes forget to “change stations now”, etc – choose low. If you concentrate and push the machines hard, choose medium. If you are doing an advanced workout and pushing the machines as hard as you possibly can, choose high.
Check your M2 during the day to see how you are doing.
- Your first button push is your “daily gauge”. It shows your progress towards your caloric target. If the green is only half way around the circle, you are only half way to your targeted number of calories to burn that day. If the green circle is complete, you have either met or exceeded your target!!
Don’t forget, this will get harder the 2nd week!
- Your 2nd button push is your “health circle”. It is based on a 7 day average. There are 3 sections –
- Heart – on average, are you meeting your target for heart healthy activies? The M2 will only give you credit for heart healthy activity when it senses increased intensity. The fitter you get, the longer and more intense the activity must be to get the same credit. See the separate section on heart healthy minutes!
- Health – on average, are you meeting your target for burning calories?
- Energy – on average, if you keep doing what you are doing, are you on target to meet the goal you set?
Synch your M2 daily to see how you are doing via My Dashboard.
• Under “Overall Results”, you will see the “lifestyle” category you have been assigned to. For the first week, you will see “---“, which is a default setting to inactive during the learning period. After that, you will see where the M2 says your activity places you. There is no way to choose this – your actions speak louder than your words here :)
• Your targets will be influenced by the goals you choose. If your goal is weight loss, the target will increase gradually as you get closer to your goal. If your goal is weight maintenance, your target will stay steady.
• PI = Performance Index. This number lets you compare yourself to yourself. It is based on the intensity and duration of your activity (not your lifestyle level). Basically you want to keep it steady or moving upwards.
• Stars by your profile show your progress towards green (Go For Green!!)
Add up your points (green=5, yellow=3, red=1) for the color of each of the 3 segments of your on your health circle (2nd button push). and divide by 3. That is the number of stars you should be seeing.
• My Points don’t have a defined purpose, but may be used for contests, etc in the future.
• Steps vs Miles – the M2 can distinguish steps on the same spot vs steps going forward.
On the charts –
• Energy Chart –
Hover on a bar to see the results for that day. You want each bar to be above the green target. The pie chart shows the average intensity of your activities over the last 30 days. Click on a bar to show the pie chart and hourly activity for a specific day. Hover on one of those bars to see an even more detailed breakdown. Use this information to help you understand what activities from your day netted you the most results. Click zoom out when you are ready to return to the daily activity chart.
If your goal is weight loss, the bars will show calories and will include BMR.
If your goal is to stay fit, the bars will show PI.
In either case, the pie chart shows calories and excludes BMR.
• Heart Chart -
You want each bar to be above the green target. Hover on a bar to see the results box for that day. At the top of the box, you will see minutes achieved vs your goal for the day. Use the graph to help you understand what activities from your day netted you heart healthy activity. See the separate section on heart healthy minutes for more information.
• My Meals -
This will only make sense if you have entered a meal plan. It is showing the results MyTrak wants you to achieve via eating for the day.
My Community
MyTrak gurus for technical questions – Paula/Aaron
Privacy – If you choose private or friends, you are invisible! If you choose public, the only thing other people can see is the community tab. They can’t see your results, etc. If you choose friends, you can reach out and invite others (set to public) to join you, but they can not reach out to you and ask you to join them.
Groups – Join the “Curves In Antioch” group!!
Under My Community, click on the magnifying glass (search) by My Groups. Click on C in the alpha list, find Curves In Antioch, click join group.
My Body
This section has tools provided by MyTrak to help you meet your goals.
• My Nutrition
• My Fitness
• My Health Coach
• My Supplements
Please note – nothing you do on these items influences your M2 results in any manner. The Curves workout and the M2 only address the exercise portion of weight loss/healthy living. The food component is a big one for many people to get a hold of.
The Curves Weight Management Plan is a good way to learn to eat healthy and get your metabolism working for you rather than against you. You can use the My Nutrition and My Supplements sections here to take it even further if you wish. You can customize the meal plans as to calories, foods, etc. Intake Analysis gives you an additional tool to help you understand just exactly how many calories you are taking into your system and what nutrients you are or are not getting.
The My Fitness section is probably beyond where most Curves members want to go, being targeted more towards body building.
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