Update on the Kersh KAM

If you follow my posts, you’ll know that this summer I started wearing a kinetic activity monitor (KAM) as part of a health and wellness program that my employer has offered. There are incentives in the form of health care spending dollars for participation in the program.

My KAM died in September (did it have anything to do with my dropping it in the toilet by mistake?) but the good folks at Kersh Wellness replaced it and I’m now back on track with my activity monitoring.

Jed getting his exercise

Not that it changes anything – I exercise regularly anyway because I live with heart disease and I know that exercise is critical for me, AND because I have Jed, the beautiful black boxador to walk every day. But there is no doubt that wearing the KAM makes you much more aware of your activity levels.

At work today a bunch of us were talking and I mentioned that one person I had spoken with said “The KAM doesn’t differentiate between 30 minutes of hard cycling and 30 minutes of normal pedaling.”  Several people agreed, and one woman said she’d heard you should put the KAM on your knee when you are cycling to get a more accurate representation of the movement. One other fellow said he put the KAM on his ankle when roller blading.

And then of course the usual joke came up – Why not put the KAM on the dog and let him do the exercise!

I won’t be putting the KAM on the dog, but I think I will experiment to see if I get different readings wearing the KAM on my hip, on my knee, and on my ankle – over the same brisk walking route.

Stay tuned for the results.