To be more accurate, use your stride length - for example mine is 42cm. 10000 x 0.42m = 4200m or 4km or 2.6 miles.

There are several other things you can do besides exercise and eating right to increase your HDL cholesterol. I'm not sure what your weight is, but if you are or near to being overweight, then losing weight will help to increase HDl cholesterol, so focussing on your fitbug weekly targets and using the nutrition section will help in achieving this. If you smoke, this will also lower HDL cholesterol, so giving up smoking will raise HDL levels if you do smoke. Your diet as you are aware will play a large part in increasing HDL levels. Try to eliminate Trans fats from your nutrition - these will often be foods containing hydrogenated vegetable oils on the nutrition label. Along with olive oil as you mentioned, canola oil and fats from peanut butter can also increase HDL. Other good foods that may increase HDL levels are oats, fruit, vegetables and fish. I hope this helps but if you have any further questions please get in touch. | Back to top

If you are trying to lose weight then you need to create a NEGATIVE ENERGY BALANCE. Imagine a set of scales, one side is your 'energy in'; this comes from food and drink. The other side is 'energy out'. This includes energy used for normal, daily processes (like eating or regeneration) and energy used for activity. If energy in equals energy out the scales will balance and your weight remains the same. If energy in (food) has more calories than energy out, the scales will be offset, and the extra calories you ate will be stored in the body as fat. If energy in is less than energy out, you have created a deficit. The body compensates by using its energy stores (the fat underneath your skin) to supplement your activities. So, to lose weight you need to reduce your calories in AND increase energy out (increasing your steps), forcing your body to use its stores and therefore losing weight. Now, more intense exercise will burn more calories during exercise (as there is more energy needed) and more after wards - this is called post exercise oxygen consumption and is higher due to the strain of having to recover from these sessions. So, I would probably stick with it! My only reservation is if you are training this hard all the time - we all need hard and easy days. Perhaps including one day of long slow distance (LSD!) training and a day of mega hard yes, even harder!) Intervals would boost your performance even more! | Back to top

Thanks for your enquiry, and congratulations on your weight loss so far, losing 90 lbs is very impressive. Unfortunately, it is quite common for that last bit of weight to be the hardest to get rid of, but with the level of activity you are doing I'm sure you will get there if you persist with your exercise program. Your calorie intake seems fine, but what is also very important when trying to lose weight is your meal timing. You may be doing this already, but the most effective way to lose weight is to consume your 1600-1800 calories over 5-6 small meals throughout the day. This means consuming about 300 calories per meal and consuming each meal every 3 hours. Your bug will calculate the number of calories you will burn by taking 13,500-14,500 steps per day. To view this, select the mode button once you have recorded this amount of steps until the 'kcal' display appears. It is difficult for me to say exactly how many calories you will burn as it is dependent on your weight and also your body composition and metabolism. The 'activity update' section on the activity page will calculate your calories burnt through activities that the bug can't measure such as swimming, and you should be using this page to log any additional activities. There are several different swimming options in the drop down box, but as an example, swimming front crawl for 60 minutes at a moderate intensity will burn 480 cal and is the equivalent of 13,714 steps. | Back to top

The goals Fitbug sets are based on the data you provide us, as well as being based on expert advice to ensure we stretch you but without any risk of overdoing it. There are targets for continuous, or aerobic activity as well as maintaining a reasonable level of activity throughout the day. It sounds to me as if we need to have a think about where we can slot in those 'active lifestyle' steps to help boost your overall total. You can dramatically increase the steps you take during the day at the office just by making little changes to your working practices. Walk to the photocopier yourself, walk to see a colleague rather than send an email or phoning them. Your productivity is dramatically increased by taking regular breaks, so use them to increase your steps and get away from your computer. Walk to the furthest toilet/cafe/vending machine, or take the stairs. With a little thought there are loads of things you can do and they soon add up! For example, you may have a half hour lunch break so why not take a walk and then eat at your desk afterwards? Try walking/jogging (or similar!) to work - if it's too far away, why not get dropped off half way and walk the rest? You may even have some time in the evenings or weekends - get your kids to clean up after dinner while you go out for a bit, or make it into a family activity - a picnic, some games. I really think that with some thought - and you are very creative - you can meet your target for aerobic and total steps. It always helps to have someone friendly onside, so have a chat with your colleagues and friends and see if they can help you hit your targets during the day. In the meantime - keep up the good work. WE all have to aim for a minimum 10,000 a day - and for every step over that we reap the rewards! | Back to top