u-Mon and Its Benefits
Whether you want to lose weight, become active, work out properly or even prepare for the Olympics, u-Mon is the right choice for you. You can use it as a Fitness Diary, Heart Rate Monitor, Calorimeter, Target Heart Rate Zones Calculator, Fitness Level Test, Walking Program Instructor, Basal Metabolic Rate
Calculator, Body Mass Index Calculator and VO2MAX capacity calculator.
The driving force for creating this revolutionary software is individual features, needs and abilities. The revolutionary character of the u-Mon is seen in the fact that the training program it creates for you is individual, refers only to you, and is entirely based on your predisposition to training. What is more, this program is not done once and for all; on the contrary, using the u-Mon, you can endlessly renew your training program so that it’s suited best to your body’s needs and abilities, your health condition as well as to
your own lifestyle. For the first time, you are entirely free to have your own individual training program created by highly specialized software, a program that solves all your needs concerning fitness and body health. For the first time you don’t have to follow general program created for millions of people and be frustrated by its inefficacy.
u-Mon is mobile software for everybody. It can be used by people who are not active and can help them become fit naturally without overwhelming their bodies and risking their health.
It gives precise directions for starting your own work-outs, while at the same time it improves and maintains your physical health.
For those who are already active, u-Mon provides excellent instructions on how to maintain optimal physical health. All of the u-Mon users can track and record their training dates, duration and calorie expenditure of any kind of workout, no
matter if it is walking, running, cycling, climbing, swimming etc. You can track your
progress in real time.
Even more, u-Mon will take into consideration every change in state of your body fitness and stamina.
EXAMPLE
If u-Mon detects a decrease in your rest pulse it will create new target heart rate zones
If u-Mon detects better fitness test results, it will increase your VO2MAX capacity. Whatever your body conditions are, u-Mon will give precise directions about how to improve and maintain your shape.
How to Use U-Mon
After installing the u-Mon software in your mobile phone the first thing you should do is set up your personal data.
Enter your date of birth, weight, height, gender (fig. 1)Measure your rest pulse in the Measure Pulse Menu and click ‘save’.
These two steps are enough for u-Mon to calculate your Target Training Zones, Basal Metabolic Rate and Body Mass Index.
You can check your personal calculated values in the Body Monitor menu.
Note that if you make any progress, some of the information needed to determine your Target Training Zones, such as your pulse, will change; in this case, u-Mon will automatically calculate another target training zone.
TIP:The best time to measure your rest pulse is right after you wake up
The Fitness Level Test is the best test method for everyone who wants to become active and doesn't know where or how to start exercising. This test measures your oxygen capacity. You can also get precise oxygen capacity value from medical equipment. u-Mon team has included age, height, weight and gender factors into the calculation. We can proudly say that the u-Mon method is very accurate since it takes into calculation all parameters and can be used for accurate assessments of your fitness level. Based on your fitness level test results, u-Mon will create a customized walking program exclusively for you. This is very useful for everyone who wants to become fit naturally without risking to overwhelm their body. Its a 20 week walking program which you can reset or recreate any time. We recommend recreating the program after taking the Fitness Level Test. The walking program automatically goes on to the next week supposing that you have followed the instructions of the previous week. You can record every workout in your personal fitness diary. Every type of training you have, whether it is walking, running, swimming, cycling etc. you can save the time, duration and calorie expenditures. u-Mon is using a formula for measuring calorie expenditure based on your heart rate and your fitness level test results. You can also input this value manually if you know your calorie expenditure per hour of given workout.
How
u-Mon Works
The first thing that the u-Mon does is reading your settings panel (figure 1) age, weight, height and gender. Based on the values in the settings menu, the u-Mon is able to calculate BMI index and your BMR.
WHAT IS BMI?
BMI stands for Body Mass Index. It’s a formula that takes into account your height and weight. The World Health Organization(W.H.O.) compared results given by BMI and found out that people in the BMI range between 22 and 25 have lowest health risk. The Body Mass Index is also a good indicator of cardiovascular risks such as a risk of heart attack, high blood pressure, stroke etc. People who have a BMI below 20 for men and 19 for women are considered underweight, and people who have BMI above 25 are considered overweight. BMI index is not very accurate for people who are extremely muscular because muscle tissue weighs more than fat stored in your body. u-Mon calculates your BMI, compares results with W.H.O. data, and ‘tells’ you whether you are overweight or underweight. The amount of kg/pounds you need to lose or gain to get to your healthy weight is displayed next to the BMI with an arrow indicator, color and a number.
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RED
(arrow down) shows how many pounds/kg you should lose.YELLOW
(arrow up) shows how many pounds/kg you should gain. -
GREEN
(OK check mark) shows that your weight is at a normal level.
EXAMPLE
If you see a screen like in Fig 2 the red bar and the red arrow indicates that this person is overweight and needs to lose 5 kg.
WHAT IS BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate)? The human body needs energy to function. Even if you do nothing - say sleep, your body still spends energy, your hearth pumps, you breathe, you dream etc. The amount of energy that your body expends can be measured. It can be represented as WATTS (yes that’s the same unit for measuring power of a Light bulb), then, it can be represented by JOULES j, Calories, and lately METS, which we will discuss later in detail.
u-Mon uses Calories and METS for its calculations.
Our bodies are supplied with energy from the food we eat, and they use that energy for all the activities we do on a daily basis. In this line, Calorie Intake and Calorie Expenditure are vital to your metabolic rate.
Calorie Intake represents calories entering your body (food), while Calorie
expenditure is calories burnt by your body. If your Calorie intake is higher than your Calorie expenditure you will start to gain weight. On the contrary, if your Calorie intake is lower than your Calorie Expenditure you will start to lose weight. People who have constant weight or insignificant weight variations have almost the same amount of calorie intake and calorie expenditure. Energy consumption can be measured in WATTS, JOULES, CALORIES and you will
get different values for every person even for the same type of physical activity. Using MET measurements
u-Mon makes unique and correct calculations for every individual calorie expenditure.
EXAMPLEtwo persons, a boy of 80 pounds and a woman weighing 180 pounds, walking along a 100-meters track. For finishing the 100 m course they are spending different amount of Calories.Calorie expenditure is also influenced by the gender of the person. A person weighing 80 kg riding a bike spends different amount of calories than a person of the opposite sex with the same weight.
BMR – Basal Metabolic Rate is an indicator of your Calorie expenditure while your body is at complete rest. If you have constant weight, then this number, is also a good indicator of your calorie intake. Since you are not sleeping 24 hours, while you are awake and doing your daily activities, you spend more Calories then while resting. There are calculators on the Net which estimate your Daily Calorie expenditure by asking what is your activity level (if you are sedentary or physically active) and they simply multiply your BMR by some number. The u-Mon goes a few steps further, just read on.
Lately there is a new unit into play. MET or METS. Mets are relative units of measurement. They show how much energy you spend with some activity, compared to your BMR.
EXAMPLESIf you are exercising at 4 mets you are spending 4 times the energy than your BMR that is, the energy you burn when your body is at rest, or when you sleep.If you are swimming at 5 mets, you are spending 5 X energy than your BMR.
That’s how a typical activity can be measured. While you cannot say that swimming burns 100 calories per hour, you can say that swimming is 5X sleeping action; running is 4X sleeping action and so on. There are also tables of MET values sorted by physical activity. Again there are some calculators on the web which you can check that already have predefined tables for activities and you can calculate how many calories you spend by specific type of activity. u-Mon again goes a few steps further.
By entering your data in the settings menu, u-Mon will give your personal BMI and BMR indicators on the body monitor screen. (Figure1)
H-Rate
Monitor Pulse Meter
Next thing you should do with u-Mon is to measure your rest pulse. This is the pulse you have while resting. It’s best to measure and save your rest pulse early in the morning right after you wake up, or after an after-lunch nap.
How does u-Mon measure your pulse?
First you need to feel your pulse on the base of your hand just right under your palm or at the neck as the pictures show. The pulse is always felt with your second and third finger and try to avoid feeling the pulse with your thumb since it has pulse on its own. When you have acquired the feeling pulse basics, you can record your rest pulse with u-Mon.
Go to Measure Pulse Menu and press the start button on your mobile phone. The screen will change and you will see a heart monitor animation (Figure 3).
Count 10 pulses on your hand or neck and press the stop button. u-Mon shows the results immediately (figure 4) and you can choose to either save it as a rest pulse or cancel the measurement results.
It is important to know that u-Mon can measure your pulse accurately even by counting only 3 pulses; however, we recommend that you always make a ten-count pulse measurement in order to secure ultimate accuracy.
Any time you measure your pulse from the Measure Pulse Screen you should know that it’s your REST pulse you are saving. It’s important to note here that u-Mon will
detect two important conditions with your heart, tachycardia and bradycardia.
Tachycardia is a condition when your heart races above 100 beats per minute when you are at rest. Bradycardia is a condition when your
pulse is less than 50 beats per minute.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradycardiahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachycardia.
Factors contributing to high heart rates are tobacco, alcohol, stress. While tobacco and stress increase your heart rate immediately, alcohol in small amounts, lowers your blood pressure, while after consuming larger amounts of alcohol your blood pressure
rises and your heart rate too. Let’s note here that taller people have higher heart rates.
With the rest pulse saved, you can go to Body Monitor Menu (Figure 5) and see the calculated target heart rate zones.
Figure5: Target Heart Rate Zones
In the middle of the screen you’ll see your rest pulse value. On the right side the last zone is calculated as your maximum heart rate. u-Mon will calculate 5 zones for you, again based on your personal information and all the previous results entered in the settings menu and your rest pulse saved.
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Warm up zone
In this zone you warm-up for any kind of exercise.
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Weight control zone
In this zone you can train a significant amount of time without getting exhausted and thus you can burn more calories.
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Aerobic Cardio zone
This zone is best for aerobics and cardiovascular exercises and training into this zone increases your endurance for specific types of workout.
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Hardcore training zone
Training for the Olympics? This zone is for you.
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Vo2MAX zone
In this zone your body spends more oxygen than you can inhale. This is your maximum heart rate.
If you want to lose weight naturally and fast, the best type of exercise should begin with the pulse you have when you’re warming up (your warm up zone pulse) and end it with pulse from the weight control zone. Zones are a useful indicator of how you should workout in order to achieve the desired results. There are many people that are overwhelming themselves, thinking that that is the right way to lose weight or increase energy but they are making more damage to their bodies.
EXAMPLES
Let’s say you have a target to lose a few pounds and you have bought brand new static bike for the purpose. You may be pushing yourself really hard and missing your weight loss zone or you may not reach your weight loss zone at all. Your calorie expenditure will be higher than BMR, but not optimal. As you can see from the graph a really good weight loss program is not the one with high heart rates.
You want to train for endurance. You take your training and see that you have not reached your cardio aerobic zone. Then you adjust your training and accordingly increase or decrease the workout level.
Fitness Level Test
After measuring and saving your rest pulse u-Mon will need to calibrate in order to calculate your specific calorie expenditure.Why is this action so important? Look at the following example.
Two friends with same age, weight, sex, and identical rest pulses, are trying to race a 200 m track. At the end of the course, one is exhausted with a heart beat pumping high and the other has strength and stamina to run an extra 200 m. If you are sedentary, doing some physical activity will seem very hard for you, but exercising will increase your endurance and harder physical activities will seem much easier to perform.
The test that u-Mon uses to calibrate itself is similar to treadmill tests performed in a hospital. Another famous method of obtaining your vo2max value is Rockport Test. This test is performed on a 1.6 km (1 mile) long track. Walking briskly will push your body to your vo2max levels beginning at 1.6 km and ending at 5 km.
The u-Mon walking test combines your rest pulse and your targeted training zones with the fitness test results which gives you more accurate fitness level results then any other method in determining your real fitness condition.
What is VO2MAX? It’s a value saying how much oxygen your body can burn with a maximum of effort. Even if it seems pretty easy to walk 1.6 km, walking briskly will enable u-Mon to get your vo2max value.The test is performed when you go to Fitness Level Test Menu and press Start. After you see the counter running you start walking briskly (Figure 6)
After you complete the 1 mile brisk walk, press the stop button and u-Mon will display time results of your walk. By pressing measure your walk time is saved, and you advance to measure pulse screen. You can also press cancel to quit the exercise (Figure 7). Continuing at this point will require saving your walking pulse.(Figure 8)
After you save your walking time u-Mon waits for the fire key when you are ready to measure your walking pulse.
u-Mon will stay in the walk pulse mode until you save the pulse. When you complete the Fitness Level Test, go to body monitor again to check your vo2max value (Figure 9).
Personalized Walking Instructor
After taking the Fitness Level Test, u-Mon is able to create personalized walking instructions for a 20-week period. The 20 week program is specially designed for increasing your VO2MAX capacity, or to put it simply, for increasing your fitness level and getting your body in satisfying shape. The program is dynamically built every week supposing that you are following the given instructions. You can recreate a new fitness program by taking the Fitness Test again, or you can reset the current program by clicking on the Walking Program Menu. (Figure 10) For best results we suggest following the walking program till the end of the last week. This program is specially designed to increase your fitness level no matter how low your current fitness state is. After increasing the VO2MAX (fitness level) we recommend replacing the old program with a new one.
If you follow these simple instructions, we guarantee you will naturally increase your energy and get back to the desired shape.
Fitness Diary and Calorimeter
With the VO2MAX capacity measured, u-Mon is able to calculate your calorie expenditure. If you haven’t taken the Fitness Test, then you have the option to enter the amount of calories you spend per hour of exercise. (Figure 11) If you have taken the fitness test already, u-Mon is able to calculate your calorie expenditure at the end of each exercise by simply measuring your pulse.
Go to Training & Stats Menu and click on the menu (Figure 12). After you press Continue you will see a counter and you can start exercising. When you are done exercising, press the fire button again. It’s very important to note here that u-Mon compares results from your fitness level and all personal data, and checks how much oxygen your body has burned during any type of activity. This feature is invented and copyrighted by the u-Mon, making it a unique and the most
accurate calorimeter on the market today. These are personal and unique values of calorie expenditure and are not bound to type of activity. After you get your exercise timing, you have the option to cancel the exercise mode or continue to measure pulse screen (Figure 12). If you continue then u-Mon sets exercise mode and you will have to save your exercise pulse.
When you save your pulse, the results of the training, such as calories, exercise duration, pulse, date and time will be displayed. To check your last result, go to Training and Stats Screen (Figure 13).
Stripes you see are actually a graph of your exercises. When you have more than one training saved, you can scroll between records using the Up and Down keys on your mobile phone. In this way you can quickly see how your last exercise compares to your previous exercises. If you see all 3 graphs full – you have achieved best results.
