The holiday season can be a war on your waistline.
Numerous family gatherings, seasonal parties and work-related events can lead to a cavalcade of caloric intake. And in the Northern Hemisphere at least, the colder weather means your movement—your natural calorie-burning potential—may be greatly restricted.
How can one combat the fearsome forces of winter weight gain? The intelligent in-house gym.
Below, we’ve identified some smart equipment that will help you fight against the seasonal push toward increased poundage.
Get To Know Your Body
Before you can wage the war against weight gain, you have to get a sense of what you are working with, and here the Withings Body Cardio can help.
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Or, rather, more than help. This clever scale can offer you the most complete picture of what’s going on with your body outside of a check-up with your doctor. The sleek and stylish scale, which is less than an inch thick, can measure an impressive range of metrics (weight, water, muscle mass) including some you may have never heard of (pulse wave velocity, anyone?). Better yet, the Body Cardio will feed your analytics to the smart device of your choice via an accompanying app, so you can set and track goals.
But the best feature of the wondrous weight tracker might be one of its more mundane—it’s Wi-Fi-enabled, which means that, with the help of some IFTTT applets, you can instruct your speakers to play a victory tune each time you reach a weight loss goal.
Price: $179.95
Smartio Cardio
Once you have a sense of where you are starting, it’s time to get the blood pumping.
We’ve sung the praises of Peloton previously, but if cycling is your speed, it’s hard to do better than this in-home bike. The compact exer-cycle equipment offers 10-plus live classes everyday, as well as a video library of more than 3,000 classes of varying length, style and difficulty. It’s an endless supply of spin classes, located in your living room, where you cannot hide from them.
But maybe group activities (albeit via video screen), or bike shorts, aren’t your cup of tea and you prefer a more classic form of torture: Running. For you, we present the NordicTrack Commercial 2950.
This top-of-the-line treadmill is a well-engineered piece of workout equipment that includes iFit technology, which will offer you a new workout routine every day and allow you to replicate real-life runs via Google Maps integration.
Most importantly, the NordicTrack 2950 includes a 10-inch color touchscreen so you can watch movies and television or search the web while you run—and when you’re driving you body to its limits, you are desperately in need of distraction.
Perhaps instead of simulating moving forward, endlessly, in space, you prefer a vertical workout. Have a Smart Rope.
In addition to sending your workout data to your smartphone, the Smart Rope’s LED lights will flash your metrics before your eyes, allowing you to keep an accurate count while you hop.
Prices: Peloton Bike ($1,995); NordicTrack Commercial 2950 ($3,499); Smart Rope, ($79.99)
Really Smart Dumbbells
It can’t all be about getting your heart rate moving. You’ll want to make sure you’re sufficiently ripped and toned by the time beach season comes around, and for that we suggest the Bowflex SelectTech 560.
These incredibly clever dumbbells compactly bring a full set of weights into your home via a unique locking mechanism. But strong engineering isn’t the only reason to buy these brainy ‘bells.
The weights are bluetooth-enabled and can be paired with the SelectTech App on iOS and Android, granting you a digital personal trainer who will keep you on top of your reps.
Price: $549
Focus on Form
With weights and a walking/biking/jumping simulator, you may think you’re set to tackle the increased tubbiness that has gathered over these winter weeks. Wrong.
You need one more piece of intelligent equipment: a television. If that seems counter-intuitive, stick with us.
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It’s not just any television, but the Samsung Class KS9810 Curved 4K SUHD TV.
This smart screen is not just a great fit for vegging out with the latest blu-ray releases, but it will help you perfect your form—an essential element if you want to get anything out of your exercise regimen.
Using the Samsung SMART TV’s Fitness VOD app and pairing with an external camera, the KS9810 can digitally mirror your workout on screen beside a video instruction, so you can see how closely you align with someone who is paid to work out for a living.
Sure beats sweating over a YouTube video on your phone while trying to follow the instructions for tricep extensions.
Price: $3,499.99 to $19,999.99, depending on size