Stuff stockings with resistance bands, jump ropes, exercise DVDs, and cute sweat bands, athletic socks, and water bottles. You could include a few sessions with a personal trainer, or gift certificates to a new yoga, pilates, or martial arts studio.

Subscriptions to fitness, yoga, and healthy eating magazines are also thoughtful and inexpensive gift ideas, and your friends will think of you each month when they receive a new issue.

If you have any gadget-happy people on your shopping list, check out some of Fitness magazine’s “Gadgets Galore” ideas:

Nike+ iPod Sport Kit, $29.00
Data dorks on the run! Place wireless sensors inside your Nike+ shoes, and the Sport Kit will measure your distance, pace, and other information on the screen of your iPod nano.

Omron HJ-112 Digital Premium Pedometer, $24.99
The Omron HJ-112 helps you reach your daily fitness goals by tracking your steps, distance traveled, and calories burned. Comes with a one-year warranty.

Tanita BF679W Duo Scale Plus Body Fat Monitor with Body Water, $49.99
This scale calculates not only your weight, but also your body fat and body water percentages, giving you a more accurate read-out on your fitness progress.

Strollometer Wheel-Based Stroller Speedometer/ Odometer, $37.99
A stroller pedometer! When taking the baby outside, new moms can do double-duty by strapping this device onto the carriage and watching the miles add up.

Happy Holidays!

Research suggests that people who keep food and activity journals lose more weight and maintain a healthier weight than people who don’t keep records. Sound tedious? Not with the DailyBurn’s easy, interactive, diet and fitness website. There’s even an iphone app for all you smartphone users out there. And the basic level is free.

A fundamental lesson in human metabolism and a favorite phrase of many dietitians is “calories in, calories out.” Take in more calories than you burn, and you will gain weight. Burn more calories than you consume, and you will lose weight. Unlike other web tools that focus on either exercise or calorie counts alone, DailyBurn incorporates both fitness and dietary tracking into one program, allowing the user to compare what they consume with what they burn.

The website offers much more than data entry. You can browse hundreds of exercises, create your own workouts, join challenges, and find accountability partners. Track distance, heart rate, reps, and sets, and (gulp!) weight and body measurements, and view your progress over time (weeks or months) in multiple interactive charts and graphs.

DailyBurn has a database of 170,000 foods and recipes. You can also add your own foods and recipes. Aside from calories, carbohydrate, protein, and fat intakes are available as well. One problem I have with the dietary portion of the site is that the default recommendation for dietary composition is 40% carbohydrate, 30% protein, and 30% fat. More moderate, and perhaps healthier, goal ranges would be more in line with 50-65% carbohydrate, 15-20% protein, and 20-30% fat. But you can easily customize these settings.

Want to “burn fat, lose weight, and gain muscle?” DailyBurn might just be the site for you. Need a motivator or want to see what this dietitian eats and does to stay fit? Then join me, cc mayes, on the DailyBurn.

It’s a no-brainer.  The more you walk each day, the more physically active you are.  Fitness experts estimate that an average of 6,000-10,000 steps per day is the “magic number” of strides required to prevent weight gain over time. If you’re trying to lose weight or maintain a weight loss, the number may be even higher. Adding steps also has added health benefits: increased aerobic fitness,  improved muscle tone, lower blood pressure and cholesterol, lower risk of heart disease, diabetes, and osteoporosis.  Plus, walking is easy and convenient, can be spread throughout the day in short bouts, and easily done on vacation or while traveling for work.

How many steps do you think you take each day?

How many steps do you actually take?  Don’t know?  Buy a pedometer: a small, inexpensive, step-counting gadget that’s worn on your waistband or inside your pocket.  Fancier models can even compute distance walked and calories burned.

Start by wearing the pedometer every day for one week. Put it on when you get up in the morning and wear it until you go to bed in the evening. At the end of the day, record your daily steps in a notebook.  At the end of week, average your daily steps over the past 7 days.  You may be surprised how many or how few steps you get in each day.

Increase average daily steps each week by 500 per day until you average 10,000 per day. If you currently average 3,500 steps each day, your goal for the following week is 4,000 each day. The next week’s goal would then be 4,500 each day. Continue to increase each week, and you’ll be averaging 10,000 steps in three months time (~13 weeks).

Need ideas to step it up:

• Take a walk with a co-worker at lunch.
• Walk the dog, walk your neighbor’s dog.
• Go for a walk with a spouse, friend, or child after dinner and on weekends.
• Use stairs instead of escalators and elevators.
• Take a spin around the mall or grocery store before shopping.
• Park as far as you safely can from all entrances.
• Plan outings in parks, amusement areas, outdoor tracks.
• Play frisbee.  Play tag in the yard.
• Carry your golf bag for 9 holes.
• Buy a used treadmill on ebay.
• Go up and down the stairs in your home or apartment during commercials.

Depending on your stride length, 2,000 steps is roughly one mile.  10,000 steps  is the equivalent of 5 miles.