Technology helps you keep your New Year’s weight loss resolutions

Like many of us, I tend to partake in the annual eating marathon, starting from Thanksgiving to the New Year. While I feel the side effects of my consumption, it’s hard to turn down delicious treats with relatives and friends shoving them at you from every direction. Finally, January first arrives and I resolve to get back into fighting shape. Luckily, there are multiple technological methods to get us back on track and focused.

Texting to lose weight

If you can’t live without your phone, then tracking your weight loss and daily exercise can come as second nature. TextWeight sends users a daily text message to remind them to weigh themselves and respond with their weight. Their progress is then tracked and a graph is created which can be seen on the website.

While you aren’t required to submit your weight every day, the daily message will remind you of your goal and maybe even guilt you into doing better if you aren’t following your resolution.

Compete in an online weight loss challenge

For those of us who need a stronger form of motivation, skinnyo.com has merged social media with weight loss. Join with your friends to battle each other in teams or as singles. For each achievement, you receive a badge that you can post to your profile to show off. Skinnyo has a wall similar to that of Facebook’s that you and your friends can post on and comment on each other’s progress.

Also, you can track how you are doing in comparison to your friends on the graph and the leader board. A fun way to increase motivation is to decide on a prize for the winner to create even more incentive to challenge each other.

While there are other ways to track your progress online, like websites where you write down calories that you consume and burn, these two options are easy ways to integrate your New Year’s resolution into activities we are already used to: text messaging and checking up with friends on social media.

Matt Schuierer (@mattschuierer) is part of the Project Management team at Mom Central.

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