Shopping for a friend who’s watching the scale? Holiday standbys like chocolate and alcohol may not be a good option. Here’s a list of gifts that will please any dieter – and help them achieve their weight goals.
Food Processor
The Ninja Master Prep Food Processor makes it easy for cooking novices to whip up delicious, low-cal meals fast. Forget chopping vegetables or dragging out the clunky blender – the Ninja Processor can churn out everything from salsa to smoothies with the touch of a button. Even better, it’s dishwasher-safe and BPA-free.
Price: $59.85
Healthy Cookbook
The Complete Cooking Light Cookbook comes with more than 1,000 top-rated, kitchen-tested recipes for the budding chef in your life. The best part? “Every appetizer, side, entrée and dessert is guaranteed to be the most temptingly delicious, decadent food you’ve ever tasted…yet they’re all light and healthy,” the book editors said. Our favorite part is the meal makeovers – which, like our own article series, show how to remake indulgent foods into healthy fare and include before-and-after calorie counts.
Price: $23.00-$34.00
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Kitchen Scale
The Digital Nutritional Food Scale not only weighs food – it can actually calculate specific nutrient values based on those weights. The scale can provide dietary information such as fat content, calories, fiber, sodium, cholesterol, protein and carbohydrates, for over 900 different foods.
Price: $47.29
Fitness Tracker
Apple and Nike have teamed up to create the most useful workout companion ever: The Nike + iPod Sport Kit. The kit comes with a wireless sensor for Nike+ shoes and a wireless receiver for iPods. As you walk or run, the sensor sends information to your iPod, tracking time, pace and calories burned. You can even set your iPod to give you encouraging updates during your workout.
Price: $29.00
Fitness + Charity
Here’s a gift that gives back. The Striiv, like the iPod and Nike product above, tracks your workout by counting the number of steps you take – but in this case, every step counts towards a donation to charity at no extra cost. Striiv and other sponsors will make donations on your behalf. How’s that for motivation?
Price: $99.00
Body Fat Analyzer
The Omron HBF 306 Fat Analyzer is a portable body weight scale that can help closely regulate and control fat intake. Unlike normal scales, this device can keep track of minute fluctuations in body weight – all you need to do is grip the scale handles for 7 seconds. Based on your height, weight, age and gender, the analyzer can measure your body fat against your lean body weight and calculate your BMI.
Price: $24.00-$40.00
Personal Trainer
A lot of gyms offer personal training packages for one or two sessions for reasonable prices. Not only is this particular gift great for kicking off weight loss after the holidays, but it could also give your friend the chance to learn a new kind of workout they’ve never tried before. For example, depending on what your local gym offers, you could buy training sessions that focus on kickboxing or yoga. Not only will the sessions burn some serious calories, but your friend may just stumble across his or her new favorite hobby.
Price: Varies
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