5 Fitness Gadgets Guaranteed to Help With New Year’s Weight Loss

The holiday season brings with it everything from gift giving to seeing relatives and friends to even some extra time off from work, among other things.

But once the holidays have come and gone, attention turns away from spending, decorations and festive parties and more toward what the new year is going to look like for each individual who begins contemplating a New Year’s resolution.

Thanks to a few extra slices of pie, one or two more cookies and enough eggnog to fill a wheel barrel, most resolutions resonate to the tune of weight loss, joining a gym or simply getting into better shape.

The truth about New Year’s resolutions isn’t an inspiring one, however with more individuals failing than actually succeeding, particularly when you talk weight loss and sticking with an exercise program.

Roughly 45 percent of individuals make a hard and fast New Year’s resolution, but only about 8 percent stick with it, hardly the kind of story you want to be told.^[1]

That same study showed that 38 percent of those goals were weight loss related, so aside from saving money or becoming financially better off, most of what defines the new year has to do with working off that holiday weight gain and ultimately becoming healthier overall.

Overall, considering New Year’s resolutions and exercising in general, about 60 percent of the population doesn’t exercise enough; 25 percent get zero minutes of exercise each day, suggesting why obesity and being overweight are of great concern in the United States.^[2]

In most cases, quitting the gym centers on results or inconvenience as the reason you’re not going. You either set to high of expectations, you lack accountability or the gym just isn’t jiving with your work schedule, and working out at home is too distracting.

Whatever the reason, a knight in shining armor of sorts is about to save you from yet another failed attempt at losing weight this new year.

Say hello to the best personal trainer you can ask for: technology, of course. Joining a gym can be antiquated, but fitness gadgets in the form of technologically driven products can make life that much easier as far as sticking with exercise and making working out anything from fun to feasible.

Track Star: Fitness Trackers Work Hard to Keep You Motivated, Moving

From the FitBit to the innovative Garmin VivoFit, fitness trackers have seen an amazing uptick in sales in recent years, mostly due to the simplicity of the product and that it makes exercising easy.

These device track steps, count calories and let you know how well you’re doing and even give you the scoop on your sleep, and if you’re restless or restful after a full 8 (we hope) hours of sleep.

The aforementioned Garmin VivoFit is one that stands out; it does all of the calorie counting and steps totals you’d want from a fitness tracker but also gives you a kick in the right direction if you’re not working out enough.

Did you know roughly 30 percent of all people who quit the gym say it’s due to simply not using it?^[3]

To translate, those 30 percent quit going because they didn’t have anyone helping them along the way, zero accountability so if you aren’t being motivated, then why would you continue going? Sadly, losing weight and being healthy isn’t enough.

The nice part about the Garmin VivoFit is that it has a red line that gets more noticeable and longer when you’re not moving for extended periods of time.^[4]

FitBit isn’t far behind this trend, either. It’s Alta FitBit has a 250 steps per hour benchmark it sets for users.^[5] Be prepared to be hounded by the Alta if you’re stagnant and not going to meet that steps per hour goal set forth for you.

Even though the United States struggles with obesity, more individuals are gearing toward a serious stance on fitness. By 2022, the “wearable” fitness and technology marketplace will stake its claim to approximately 12.4 billion dollars, a number on the rise than previous years.^[6]

H2 Oh: Smart Bottles Make Water Consumption Consistent

You’ve heard of smartphones, smart homes and, well, just about everything else with the word “smart” around it, but what about smart bottles.

These devices center around fitness and weight loss, specifically making sure you drink enough waters. Several studies have suggested that you should consume at least 8, eight-ounce glasses of water in a day, but most falls short of expectations.

HydraCoach is a brand that delivers that “smart bottle” to the tune of technology and exercise melding at the most opportune and expert way. What makes this bottle so unique is it pays attention to hydration the same way a fitness tracker does calories or steps.

It not only tells you if you’re drinking enough water but pays attention to the rate of which you’re drinking as well. The HydraCoach is about a specific to water and intake that you can get.

Water also is key to weight loss because of the positive metabolic effect it has on your body. Women, for example, who drank 16 ounces of water in a sitting helped their metabolic rate by 30 percent, and increasing water by 1.5 liters per day means you’ll burn about 200 extra calories.^[7]

All told, you should really drink about half of your body weight in water. That statistic is one you’ll want to pay close attention to given that, on average, most don’t drink nearly enough water. A product like HydraCoach makes it easy with reminders that you should be drinking more than you already are.

So how much do we fall short on water?

About 43 percent of adults drink less than four cups, considering that 8 to 10 cups of water is the norm.^[8]

Personal Training: Why Skype and VOIP take one on one to another level

A lot of what you’ll find on this list centers on “gadgets” in the truest sense, but what about technology in terms of personal training. The fitness trackers are sensational and certainly keep you one step ahead of those who aren’t being held at a high standard of fitness by what’s around your wrist.

Those individuals who want to go the route of technology and have a person on the other end motivating them, but aren’t interested in spending a small fortune on personal training or going to a gym need not worry about that, thanks in most part to your broadband connection and the arrival of VOIP (voice over internet protocol).

Skype is an amazing VOIP tool in that you can meet with a personal trainer through a variety of different, affordable pay services that keep you on track with a trainer at your fingertips. This isn’t a support hot line but instead a video chat and conference with an entire team of trainers from the comfort of your own home.

RetroFit is one brand that stands out in this realm of virtual training done right. The cost is around $248 per month, and that includes a dietician, behavior coach and physiologist.^[9]

RetroFit also is fitted with the ability to track your food, doing weigh ins with your coaching team and a mobile app that is almost like having round the clock support from them.

When you consider the average cost of a personal training session, just one, is anywhere from $60 to $100 per hour, a three-day per week fitness regimen is going to cost you $240 for just one week if you take that average per session. That’s an entire month of RetroFit.

What RetroFit doesn’t do is follow you to the gym but serves as more of a eating coach and gets to the core of motivation and accountability, and figures out what makes you tick and how to tap into your inner fitness drive, particularly for individuals who are busy and have a hard time making time for themselves when it comes to exercise.

RetroFit has a 90 percent success rate, with an average of a 1/2 to 1 pound per week lost.^[10]

Live Eventful: Home Equipment Gets Major Interactive Boost

Here’s a huge problem with exercise and working out at home, beyond just being distracted and unmotivated. You aren’t sure what to do. On the flip side, what ails those who join a gym and end up quitting is a lack of direction as well and crowded clubs, so it’s almost as if you can’t win being at a gym or at home, as far as equipment goes and the lack of motivation involved.

How are you supposed to get this holiday weight off?

If your gym is too crowded, you’re lost, and you’re just not using it to justify spending money, then Peloton’s bikes ails both those reasons, one pedal to the next.

Four out of five gym memberships actually go completely unused for an entire year, aside from the New Year’s resolution goers.^[11]

The best way to succeed with at-home exercise is ensuring you’re not bored with the same, old equipment that has been failing the masses for years. Treadmills, ellipticals and recumbent bikes are fine, but lack any sort of dimension or depth to keep you engaged in what you’re doing.

Peloton is a brand that specifically designs spinning bikes with an interactive, technology driven flare to them. They’ll live stream classes and instructors directly to the screen on the bike, so you can pedal and thrive alongside someone right from the comfort of your own home. Peloton takes the convenience of at-home exercise and avoids those crowded gyms and puts the group fitness class right in your living room or exercise space.

Amidst the typical negativity of how we can’t keep our New Year’s resolutions regarding weight loss, you can find a few diamonds in the rough more now than ever, mostly due to how technology, from counting steps to calories, has been streamlined through the implementation of devices and gadgets.

Strictly joining a gym isn’t enough. About 80 percent of people who join in January quit by February.^[12] That’s where technology can bridge that gap.

At the end of the day, you can agree that even the most adept and capable piece of technology is only as good as the user, but knowing that you have yet another means of support in your weight-loss journey certainly doesn’t hurt.

Sure, you have a plenty of duds and scams as far as promises from products and technology alike that tell you how much weight you’re going to lose, yet fail miserably at delivering. But for every “Shake Weight” and “Ab Lounge” you get technology infused products that are more than just elevator music when it comes to singing a sweet tune of weight loss to you.

This isn’t someone screaming in your ear, making you feel bad or a long car ride to the gym in winter weather after an exhausted day. Instead, technology and using it to your advantage can translate in unwanted holiday pounds shed and more importantly a better understanding and direction on how to stay healthy and keep the weight off for good.