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"With the holiday season coming to an end, chances are you're starting to think about those New Year's resolutions. And like most people, yours probably include a desire to be healthier.\nTechnology is helping in that department, with dozens of fitness apps and gadgets on the market aimed at helping us track our progress and reach our goals. Some are strictly to monitor your food and caloric intake, others will track your movement and exercise while others let you compete against friends with similar goals.\nFitocracy is one of those apps that's making a difference in people's lives as they strive to be healthier. It was voted the most innovative product in the Health and Fitness category of Mashable's Innovation Index, having been nominated along with LarkLife,  WellnessFx,  the Nike Plus Running App  and GymPact by Sarah Robb O'Hagan, president of the Equinox fitness empire.\n\nIn explaining why she nominated Fitocracy, Robb O'Hagan said she took a step back to examine the whole industry. \"As I think about the newest innovations in health and fitness, I am mindful that there are a ton of new ideas, apps, platforms and technologies that are popping up all over the place. It's becoming a cluttered and confusing marketplace \u2014 with many promising a silver bullet that I simply don't believe exists. At the end of the day, health and fitness is about a person's overall commitment to a sustained fitness lifestyle \u2014 which incorporates good decisions around nutrition, fitness, recovery and sleep.\"\nWhile many of the new gadgets available offer sleep as well as fitness tracking, Robb O'Hagan told Mashable, \"I am drawn to those that are enabling consumers to achieve their lifestyle goals by monitoring behaviors and helping them to evolve their performance/results based on that data.\"\n\nSEE ALSO: More Smartphone Users Turning to Mobile for Health Info\nIt's the data that lets you track your progress and build on your workouts, helping you work toward your goals. Other devices and apps do this as well, but Fitocracy incorporates a gaming element that lets users earn points to \"level up.\" Points are earned for completing specific groups of fitness tasks or \"quests.\" In this way, you not only challenge yourself, but compete against friends and other users, and who doesn't love a bit of friendly competition?\nWhile some fitness apps only let you log your nutrition and exercise on their specific app, others, including Fitocracy, integrate with fitness tracking apps like RunKeeper, which allow for more social features. Fitocracy's free iPhone app makes the service easily accessible by mobile phone, and co-founder Richard Talens told Mashable that it's easy and inviting to use in a mobile environment.\n\"You can see how many points you've gotten and how many points you need to get to the next level,\" he said. \"It motivates you when you\u2019re at the gym. If you have to run another half of a mile to reach the next level, you'll do it.\"\nAnd Talens certainly knows his audience. Robb O'Hagan says, \"I love what Fitocracy is doing to bring the community of passionate fitness advocates together in a relevant and competitive way \u2014 let's be honest, a lot of us fitness junkies are competitive at heart!\"\nFitocracy is enabling you to share and compare your progress as you get healthier, while letting you have some fun along the way.\nPhoto via iStockphoto, webphotographeer."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2012/12/28/fitocracy-fitness-app/>