Weight Loss
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Wii Fit push up bars make sense, but this one isn't worth dollars
Push-up bars for the Wii Balance Board? Now that sounds like a fantastic idea -- just the thing broad-shouldered individuals need to play Wii Fit without backstrain. Too bad this particular set of bars isn't worth the plastic it's printed from. The latest and greatest from the minds in the chintzy plastic peripheral industry, the $25 CTA Digital Wii Push Up Bar is held in place by only your weight and a few foam strips without reinforcement of any kind, meaning it could detach itself with any significant exertion. The only good that comes out of all this is an embarrassing video demonstration after the break, which features a pair of smiling humans pretending to have fun with the contraption. QVC, eat your heart out.
Riiflex Wiimote dumbbells cease being a joke, now on sale
You know, we were surprised these Wii Remote appendages actually made it to the pre-order stage way back in April of last year, a feeling which slowly dissipated as they failed to make it out to real retail. Until now. The 2lb / 1kg Riiflex sleeves for your Nintendo-approved wand are ready to purchase, starting at a cent under $30, though the 5lb variety promised earlier is yet to make an appearance -- perhaps it's become yet another victim of the harsh, cutthroat economics of the Wii peripheral business. Anyhow, if you wanna take your Wii Fitness to the next level, the source link will get the set of two to your door with free delivery, though it might be a bit late in helping you shape up for V day.
Lose It! app for iPhone updated to 2.0, introduces online sync service
As you prepare to feast, it's not too soon to consider the impact of all that turkey and stuffing. The free Lose It! [iTunes Link] has been out for a long while now, and it's an app that people nearly always bring up when the conversation turns to good exercise/calorie tracker apps. With good reason: at one point I managed to lose over 15 pounds, and it was at least partly thanks to Lose It! on the iPhone. Its extremely intuitive interface and vast database of foods and exercises made it incredibly easy for me to track my progress and restrict my caloric intake. The one thing I always thought was missing from Lose It! was the ability to sync information back to the Mac. The app itself had limited ability to track trends over time, so I always wished Lose It! had some way of getting that info off my iPhone and onto my computer so I could at least make a spreadsheet out of it. Lose It! has gone one step farther than that -- they've created their own website, loseit.com, that allows you to view all sorts of information, synced directly from the 2.0 version of Lose It! on the iPhone. Not only are there heaps of information about your own weight loss, calorie consumption, and exercise trends, Lose It's website also allows you to view your friends' information and watch each others' progress, assuming you all have the Lose It! app.
First Look: iFlex trainer for Bowflex
As the owner of a new Bowflex system, I was excited to be able to try the $1.99 iFlex app from Redkab Creative [iTunes link]. For the new system owner, this app is really helpful. It provides a video reference library that shows you how to use the equipment to perform a wide range of exercises for every part of the body. Each movement is categorized into an area of your anatomy, including shoulders, chest, arms, legs, and so forth. Within each category are a dozen or more individual exercises. Each unit contains both a video overview and a starting and ending position -- very helpful when trying to understand exactly how to perform the exercise. In addition to the reference material, iFlex offers a virtual trainer. This section of the app includes suggested workout routines for gaining muscle, losing weight, and toning. You can track your sets, report the number of pounds lifted and your reps. Days 6 and 7 instruct you to "take the day off." I did not find any graphing tools or any way to track progress otherwise, nor can you create your own workouts. To wrap up the program, a simple fitness calculator figures out your BMI (Body-Mass Index, the same index used by Wii Fit), BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate), and your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure). It's a nice enough feature, but something of an afterthought. iFlex was nicely designed and for just two bucks, it's a great accessory to a Bowflex-style system. My personal unit is different from the one used in the videos, but it wasn't hard to adapt the instructions to the realities of the equipment in use. I'm looking forward to using iFlex over the next few weeks to add to my workout vocabulary.TUAW is commonly provided with not-for-resale licenses or promo codes to permit product evaluations and reviews. For more details, see our policy page.
Withings WiFi Body Scale integrates Twitter, launches in the US
You know that friend -- we all have one -- that bores you with incessant tweets regarding his weight, his caloric intake, number of miles jogged, so on and so forth? Well, don't let him get a hold on this: finally available in the US, the WiFi Body Scale by Withings has received a bit of an upgrade, with its web app now offering Twitter integration. Not only does this bad boy register your weight, body fat, and BMI, but you can now configure it to send your stats to "the Twitter" either daily, weekly, monthly, or each and every time you weigh -- and your followers will start dropping faster than even you could imagine. But don't take our word for it! As our man Cedric Hutchings (the company's general manager) states, "adding this social functionality makes the WiFi scale by Withings the first true flagship of the Internet of Objects." Right. He might have added that the company's given "fail whale" an entirely new meaning. Yours for $159. PR after the break.
Fitbit review
It wasn't that long ago that a bathroom scale was the only gadget you needed to track weight loss. Today even videogame consoles, once the bane of the fitness industry, are trying to help you recycle that spare tire, and of course there's no shortage of specialty doo-dads getting in on the action. The Fitbit is one of those, a little accelerometer that pledges to keep an eye on what you do so that you can just go ahead and do it, reporting back at the end of the day on how well you did at staying active. It sounds nice, but it's not quite that self-sufficient. Read on to see if it's worth the commitment. %Gallery-75475%
WiFi-enabled bathroom scale slides into USA, overweight Yanks sluggishly back away
Oh sure, we Americans love our fast food. And we love our technology. But do we really love the latter? Withings has just announced that the world's first WiFi-enabled bathroom scale has made its way into the States after a few months abroad, and we have to say, this could change everything. When pouncing upon it, the scale automatically records the user's body weight, lean / fat mass and calculated body mass index (BMI) to his or her secure webpage, and if you're more the iPhone type, it can beam data to a Withings iPhone app as well. It's available now for $159, but you can certainly wait 'til your latest diet has had some sort of effect before bringing one home. A delightful demonstration video is waiting for you just past the break.
Nike+ iPod equals a weight loss success formula
(As a follow up to Tim Wasson's 'An Apple a Day' fitness plan, I thought I'd share my experience on how the Nike+ iPod kit helped me lose weight.) It's high noon in Los Angeles on a late May Sunday. But this isn't your typical Sunday. You see, I'm about to finish my first ever marathon. As I make my way toward the finish line, I hear the roar of thousands of spectators cheering me on. For those who have yet to experience this, I tell them that there's no other feeling like it -- one where thousands of people, who know nothing about you, are willing you to finish the final meters of a 26.2 mile race. As I make my way toward finish line, I think of everything that led up to this moment, and how much running has changed my life. But I don't think I'd have made it this far had it not been for the Nike+ iPod kit; for by changing the running experience, it's also changed my feelings about running.
TUAW Fitness: An Apple a day makes the weight go away
I've struggled with my weight for a long time. In my free-wheeling post-college days I lived with my two best friends, sitting around playing video games, drinking beer and eating Taco Bell. I put on a lot of weight in a short amount of time with that diet and exercise schedule, topping out at 260 pounds. I decided enough was enough, and I strapped on my running shoes, straightened up my eating habits, and lost almost 90 pounds. In the years that have followed, my weight has gone up and down several times, and I'm at the point now that I need to get serious about losing weight again. According to my BMI, at 6'3" I should top out at 199 pounds, and right now I'm at 225. This time my weight loss should be easier since I have 3 secret weapons: my iPhone 3GS, my Mac and my AppleTV. Read on for my weight loss plan and how these Apple products will help me achieve my goals.
Withings Connected Body Scale remembers what you'd rather forget
More often the object of dread than fascination, the humble bathroom scale has been given a makeover by Withings, which has injected the Connected Body Scale with WiFi and an online progress tracking system not too dissimilar from that used by Nike+. This sleek metallic device is accurate to 100 grams -- oh yes, it's metric, like it should be -- and conducts a body mass analysis that can tell you the uncomfortable truth, should you care to know it. Accessing progress data can be done via a free iPhone app or the company's website, which is also the best place to plop down the €129 ($184) entry fee. And don't tell us you're not interested, somebody is buying up all those Wii Fit boards and it sure as hell isn't us. Video after the break.Update: Withings tells us that pound measurements are also available for you eccentric old schoolers, and September should see a US release priced at $159, so good news all around.[Via Chip Chick]
Keep your New Year's resolutions: a Holiday Gift Guide
Ahhhh, New Year's resolutions. You promise that you're going to take better care of yourself, improve your life, and then you usually break all of those resolutions by January 2nd. This year's going to be different, right? Here are some gift ideas to help you keep your 2009 New Year's resolutions. Weight Loss Unless you're the lean and mean marathon Mac man and real-life action figure Adam Engst, you could probably afford to lose some weight. Resolving to lose a few pounds is a classic New Year's resolution, and one that's very easy to break. Fortunately, there are some Mac and iPhone applications that can help you to stay the course: CalorieKing Nutrition & Exercise Manager for Mac OS X -- This US$45.00 application has a huge food database and makes it simple to drag-and-drop caloric information into a food diary. Exercise tracking and a weight log are included as well. BeFit -- TUAW covered the debut of this US$15.95 Mac application earlier this year, and it remains a good program for tracking what you put in your mouth. Remember, you can get BeFit at half-price if you're a current Jon Brown Designs customer.
Flickr Find: A polished weight tracking app
Having been a connoisseur of fine design since the first Mac hit the streets in '84, I'm always attracted to apps that have that certain polish that is associated with Apple products. That's why I was impressed when I went out and looked at the Flickr pool for Weightbot, an upcoming iPhone app that does one simple thing elegantly -- it tracks your weight.Designer Mark Jardine and developer Paul Haddad expect Weightbot to be released in the next couple of weeks, and it's an app I'd consider buying just for the looks! From the bathroom scale-like Weightbot mascot (at right) to the custom controls for entering your weight, it's apparent that Mark spent some time thinking about the look and user interface of the app, and that Paul was able to implement Mark's vision.The custom date scroller is especially attractive and functional, making it easy to see at a glance when you entered your weight as you flick through the days. I look forward to seeing Weightbot and future iPhone apps from this team at Tapbots.
15 Minutes of Fame: Lean and mean with WoW
15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about.Just a few weeks ago, we published a post about two guys who connected their treadmills to their computers to find out just what it would be like to really take a little jog down the road from Shadowglen to Darnassus. (Hilarity ensued.) But that got us thinking ... What if these guys had actually kept playing that way, turning their WoW-time into a potent weight-loss strategy?It turns out that quite a few players have done exactly that. Back in 2006, The Weight Lifter lost more than 40 pounds with two-hour "WarBiking" sessions on an exercise bike while playing WoW. ("If things got crazy -- as in, I ended up running for my life in the game -- I would end up peddling really fast on the bike. LOL, I know, kinda weird. You try it and see what you do!") Then we talked to Althaea of Terror Nova-H on Eitrigg. Althaea has lost almost 100 pounds playing WoW from a treadmill, shrugging off a diagnosis of sleep apnea and creating an exercise routine that has definitely stuck. Find out how he put it all together, after the break.
Be fit with BeFit for Mac
In case you're wondering why I've been writing about exercise and food applications lately, it's because I'm trying to lose a few pounds, OK? When I saw the press release for BeFit from Jon Brown Designs today, I jumped (well, would you believe moved slowly?) at the chance to post about this app.BeFit works like most food tracking applications in that it lets you count exactly how many calories you're taking in. If you take in fewer calories than you expend, then you'll lose weight over time. BeFit includes over 7,000 foods from the FDA/USDA food database. Spotlight search is built into the application to make it easy to search for foods, and when you find them they're displayed with a full Nutrition Facts panel like those on food packages.You can create a huge number of individual tracking lists, rename them, and sort them. If you're just looking for certain nutrients to track (e.g., carbs or saturated fats), you can hide other nutrients, then get a running total for those items you're interested in.BeFit 1.0 is US$15.95 and existing customers of Jon Brown Designs get a 50% discount. All purchasers of BeFit 1.0 receive free upgrades through version 3.0. There's a demo available from the BeFit website.
My Other Weight Loss Coach
Ubisoft isn't the only company making a DS weight-loss training game. D3 Publisher is preparing their own weight-loss game, made by Marsh developers Microvision. Yasetore DS (short for Yaseru Training DS: "Weight Loss Training") includes diet and exercise help for the short term.In fact, it's designed to help people reach three-week weight-loss goals. Where other training games seem focused on improving quality of life and imparting healthy habits and whatnot, Yasetore is pretty open about its quick-fix philosophy. However, since the advice takes the form of things like exercises and healthy recipes, it's not going to kill you or anything. Probably not.%Gallery-15794%[Via Siliconera; images via Girls-Style]
Science community tackles Wii weight loss claims
Studies into how effective the Wii is for shedding pounds are not new. Earlier this year, one gamer committed himself to a six-week regime of playing Wii Sports for thirty minutes a day, and came out nine pounds lighter. Not only that, but you should spend a day here at the Wii Fanboy offices -- it's all well-oiled, rippling biceps, bulging pectorals, and washboard stomachs. Sort of.Anyway, the scientific community has finally followed suit, with two UK-based researchers testing exactly how much of a workout Wii users are getting, compared to Xbox 360 gamers. Using teenagers as their subjects, the pair discovered that playing on the Wii burnt off an extra 60 calories per hour than gaming on the Xbox 360. Their conclusion? That while the Wii certainly helps with weight loss, it probably isn't an ideal substitute for regular exercise, cruelly scuppering our plans to work off post-holiday season pounds with some lengthy Wii Tennis sessions. Their findings were published in the British Medical Journal, no less. Admittedly, these results tell us little that we didn't already know, thanks to the experiment we mentioned in the first paragraph. But now that the same process has been carried out by the white coats, rather than Some Dude on the internet, some may claim it has an extra layer of credibility.[Via BBC]
Weight loss program in Wrath of the Lich King?
While browsing the forums earlier today, I came across this strange yet thought-provoking question in a thread created by Laurelyn."I rerolled a BELF Pally and leveled her to 44, however after playing my trim little girl for a month or two I came back to my human paladin only to find the pally I once loved and saw as curvaceous now seems to me .. well significantly over weight. Will I have the opportunity to perhaps enroll her in a weight loss program when WotLK comes out?"While I don't think that the human female models in game are anything even remotely close to overweight, it is an interesting question. We've reported on the new ways that WotLK may change your character's appearance in the past. Wouldn't this qualify as just another way to alter your character's appearance?What do you think? Would you want to make your character more thin (or heavier) if you could?
MIT builds robotic weight loss coach
In an attempt to understand how humans react to having a robotic weight loss coach in their home versus simply using the software that the machine is loaded with, the imaginative folks at MIT have constructed a sociable robot that wants to see you reach your ideal weight. The robot uses internal cameras and face-tracking software to maintain eye contact with you while you attempt to fib about exactly how much exercise you've had, and the external touchscreen allows you to input data such as food / calorie consumption and duration of exercise. The creature is slated to hit the homes of select Bostonians as the designers begin to test its long-term effectiveness, but those looking for a glimpse of it in action should check out the video provided in the read link.[Via TechDigest]
Satiety's transoral TOGa stomach stapling procedure
Satiety, Inc. has finally found the funding it needs to push forward with a radical new approach to assisting the obese, as it has rounded up $30 million in financing from a number of venture capitalists who dug the idea. Essentially, the TOGa procedure is a "completely transoral process designed to achieve similar weight loss to restrictive surgeries," and it also claims to be less invasive, require less recovery time, and should create a "dramatically reduced amount of complications." In this system, the physician would "introduce a stapling device transorally and create a restrictive pouch at the entry of the stomach," and moreover, it's considered "non-surgical" in nature, endoscopic, and can be performed by properly trained bariatric surgeons, general endoscopic surgeons, and gastroenterologists. Currently, the firm is moving forward with plans to get the procedure approved by the FDA, and while there's no telling how long such a convoluted process will take, stomach stapling could see an entirely different approach in the years to come if this proves effective.[Via CNET]
Motivatrix's MX9 Workout Master replaces aging stationary bike
Dance Dance Revolution has certainly helped pave the way for the health-conscious set to exercise whilst gaming, and even the Wii has sparked an outbreak of get-fit kids who endure hours of Wii Sports just to melt off those pounds, and now Motivatrix is hoping to get its exercise / gaming machine hybrid into your fitness room in place of that not-so-thrilling elliptical. The MX9 Workout Master mimics existing DDR systems in design, but it manages to feature a number of internal games inside to keep your workout sessions fresh. Additionally, the machine not only recognizes fancy footwork, but built-in sensors can understand arm flailing as well, and you can even "jam out to your own music" while breakin' a sweat. Most interesting, however, is the fact that its also an internet-enabled machine, meaning that exercise freaks across the land can compete against one another, giving even the least motivated individuals something to work for. No timetable was noted as to when we'd see these things hitting sporting goods sections, but until we get a crack at "Calorie Killer," we'll just stick with Simmer Down Sprinter.[Via CNET]
