Slideshow

Gadgets to help you lose weight

24 Photos Keith Shaw (Network World)

Having trouble keeping that New Year's Resolution? Clearly you just lack the proper technology. Here are gobs of gadgets to get you on track.

  • FitOrbit Price: $10 per week Online personal training and health Web site offering one-on-one personal training and nutrition advice. Users receive daily updates from a FitOrbit trainer via mobile phone, and customized meal plans and workouts are included. An iPhone app (Android and BlackBerry app coming soon) lets you hit a panic button when temptation strikes, eliciting an immediate response from your trainer.

  • Body Lite Laser Price: Ranges from $1,500 to $4,000 The heck with exercise - this system combines a Zerona laser with Blood Nutrition Assessment, to help patients lose three to five inches of fat in two weeks. The laser targets two trouble areas, and can be a non-invasive alternative to liposuction.

  • My24 iPhone App, Mobile Web site, from 24 Hour Fitness Free tool The U.S. fitness chain's My24 application lets users locate clubs, review club amenities, and look up class schedules. Fitness tools include a Body Mass Index Calculator, Calorie Burner calculator, Resting Metabolic Rate, daily calorie calculator, and mobile access to the 24 Hour Fitness YouTube channel.

  • IPHONE / IPOD TOUCH APPS M-TRAIN Price: $1.99 on iTunes App Store Developed by fitness trainers Brian Abercrombie and Kristin Anderson, the app provides predesigned and customizable workouts. The app incorporates "whole body training system" that combines Power, Agility, Strength and Endurance in the workouts. Workouts vary from 25 to 60 minutes, and focus on the user's entire body. Connects to the user's iTunes library so you can set a personal playlist for every workout.

  • WiThings: Connected Bodyscale Price: $159 Everything else in your house connects to Wi-Fi, why not your bathroom scale? The Withings scale automatically records the user's body weight, lean and fat mass, and calculated body mass index, and instantly transmits it via Wi-Fi to a private Web page or free iPhone application. The scale supports up to eight users, and includes a large backlit display.

  • LIVESTRONG.com Mobile Calorie Tracker Price: $2.99 on iTunes App Store This app monitors your nutritional intake by tracking what you eat and how much you exercise each day. Database includes more than 600,000 food items and 2,500 fitness activities. The app also tracks against individual caloric goals, providing users real-time feedback.

  • Adidas miCoach Price: $139.99 Get verbal coaching during your run with the adidas miCoach system – includes the Pacer, a small device that delivers real-time audible coaching as a user exercises via headphones or combined with an MP3 player. The miCoach Zone ($65.99) is an easy-to-read color-coded LED screen on a wristband device to provide accurate, real-time information, including heart rate.

  • AllSport GPS, by Trimble Outdoors Price: About $6 per month, prices vary by device This app lets you hit a start button on your GPS-enabled iPhone, Android or BlackBerry device, then you do your workout (walk, run, hike). When you're done, you can view results such as time, calories burned, maps and number of miles traveled. Results can be stored online, letting you compare with past workouts. Other workouts can be downloaded to the phone from experts and other users. Having the app on the phone eliminates the need to carry a pedometer or special watch.

  • Walkmeter Price: $4.99 on App Store Turns an iPhone 3G or 3GS into a GPS stopwatch, giving feedback and motivation to walk further. The device records your time, location, distance and elevation and pace for walks up to six hours. Results are shown on maps, graphs and a calendar. The app tracks how much distance is walked by day, week, month and year. You can compete against previous walks by ranking each walk in order to beat your own time and/or distance.

  • MyMighty Team Free online service that connects people with team support. You can invite friends, family or fellow gym members to join your team to help you make your progress. The site's Teammate Finder can suggest similar people to work with. Users can set goals, report back to the team, post photos, celebrate monthly milestones, or rant in a bloglike fashion. Teams are private and invitation only.

  • FINIS: Circuit Trainer Price: $129.99 This audible workout timer gives motivation and direction for circuit interval strength training. It includes double programmable modes for rest and exercise time periods (ranging from 1 second to 20 minutes), to help users focus on working out and improving fitness results. The timer includes an LED screen and includes amplified speakers with adjustable volume horn blasts for use in large open spaces (for outdoor or group usage).

  • Lose It! Free on App Store Set goals, establish a daily calorie budget and record food and exercise. New version lets you add friends to track each other's progress, send messages to friends to keep them motivated, synchronize data with loseit.com.

  • Wellsite.com This online workout tracking service is aimed at personal trainers to use for their clients, or for people looking for such a service. The site includes 3-D video technology to create exercise plans custom-tailored to each member's fitness level and goals, step-by-step exercise instructions, and an equipment filter that can customize plans based on the equipment at your gym. Other features include exercise history tracking, access to original articles on fitness and nutrition, a searchable Exercise Lab that lets you find exercises by muscle group, equipment or keywords, and daily recommended caloric intake based on the fitness plan and personal profile.

  • Haier America Trainer portable media player Price: $60 This portable MP3 player with FM tuner also includes a heart rate monitor, pedometer, a calorie counter and a stopwatch. The device is small enough to clip onto workout gear – a three-axis sensor can measure motion in multiple directions, distinguishing from walking and running. Supports Rhapsody's library of more than 7 million songs, as well as MP3, WMA and WAV files.

  • Quantum Scale Price: $US90 A one-user personal scale that doesn't tell you your weight, but rather either a plus or minus reading based on the initial weigh-in. When you lose weight, the scale displays "-5" if you've lost five pounds.

  • ION Audio USB Blood Pressure Monitor Worn on the wrist, you can then connect the device to a USB port and transmit readings to your computer, allowing you to track changes and trends over time, and send them to your doctor as well.

  • ION AUDIO USB Body Mass Scale This device lets you weigh and measure yourself at any time, connecting to a USB port and transmitting data such as weight, body mass index and body composition. Track changes over time with included software.

  • SanDisk SlotRadio Health & Fitness card and player Price: $40 for card, $60 card plus player (pictured). The slotRadio Health & Fitness card includes 1,000 pre-loaded songs from Billboard artists and arranged into playlists such as Cardio, Cooldown, Power, Roadwork, Spa, Warmup and Yoga. The card works in the company's slotRadio, slotRadio To Go, Sansa Clip+ or Sansa Fuze players.

  • VITAband Price: $19.99 for wristband, plus $20 per year for service. The VITAband bracelet is the first in a series of digital fitness accessories and medical ID tags that includes emergency contact data as well as contactless payment options on the wrist. Perfect for paying for things while working out, or in case you have a medical issue.

  • Nintendo Wii, with exercise-related games Price: $200 for console, Wii Fit Plus costs $90 with balance board. Other games sold separately. So you bought the kids a Wii for Christmas – now use the console to shed some pounds. The motion-based games are a great way to get started on a workout plan, whether it's the exercise-based games Wii Fit or Wii Fit Plus, or energy games like Wii Sports Resort or Extreme Life Challenge.

  • HolosFitness.com Free Fitness meets social networking – the free online site lets users get in shape, stay in shape and lead a healthy lifestyle. The site includes hundreds of exercises posted with step-by-step instructions, video demonstration of workouts, and blogs posted by fitness pros. Programs include beginning (Gateway Workouts) all the way to advanced programs that can add variety to existing routines.

  • Shape Up The Nation This site prompts users via text message that they need to enter in their fitness milestones (pedometer steps, minutes of exercise). Users can then text back the information and have it auto-populated into the online portal.

  • WEB SITES Gymji.com A social network that aims to bridge the connection between local gym members, enabling them to have in-person support at their own gym. The service also plans on bringing "Biggest Loser" type competitions to local gyms.

  • Vowing to lose weight is the New Year's Resolution that most of us make, and most of us break. But now technology is here to help, with several gadgets, Web sites and iPhone and other mobile device apps that aim to keep you on track. Here are a bunch of our favorite methods for losing weight through the magic of technology.

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