Into the Gruve
Fitness Tracking Made Easy

As sexy as all this slush, snow and sole-destroying salt is, a warm Mexican beach is probably looking pretty good right about now.

But after you spent winter carefully building a thick layer of cold-weather insulation through an intensive regimen of bacon burgers, poutine and well-thought-out Restaurant Week reservations, let's make sure you're looking great for that beach.

For help, we present The Gruve, a clip-on gadget that tracks your every move, now available to restore you to your usual Greek god-like state.

In short, this is what you get if you cross a trainer at Equinox with a U of C-trained statistician and then turn the result into a game for the Wii. Clip it on (or carry it in your pocket), and the discreet little device—ironically, about the size of a candy bar—will begin measuring your movements.

So at the beginning of the day, the device will glow red, but as you burn calories doing all the normal, everyday Chicago winter activities—trudging, slogging, fighting off parking space poachers—the light will gradually turn to blue and, finally, to green, indicating that you've met your calorie-burning goals for the day. (Or, as you call it, martini time.)

Then plug the device into a computer, and you'll see a minute-by-minute breakdown of your calorie burning, helping you adjust your idle time to more productive pursuits.

Or vice versa.