Sparkpeople

Sammysu · January 2012

Does anyone use this? Can you give me more info on it?

Is it free? How has it helped/ not helped? What do you like most about it?

carlab44 · January 2012

I don't anymore but I did use it a few years ago. I lost 20lbs on it (and have kept it off). It is free.

Basically you enter in your fitness and your nutrition goals. So for fitness you estimate how many calories you'll burn each week, or how many minutes of various exercise you'll do. Then for nutrition you enter in your current height, weight and goals (weight loss, sustain current weight, etc.) and date you hope to reach that goal. It will then come up with a calorie range that it suggests you should try to stick to in order to meet your goals. The range usually has a 200-300 calories difference between the top and low end.

Then each day you enter in what you eat and how much you exercised, and it helps you track calories in and calories out. Prior to doing sparkpeople I thought I ate fairly well, but I was intentionally naive to the amount I was eating. It really opened my eyes to portion control. I no longer need to track what I eat (I did it for about 6 months) but now have a much better understanding of how many calories are in what and how much I should be eating.

There are other sites out there that are similar to sparkpeople so if you don't like it you could try www.livestrong.com or www.fitday.com.

BananaBlitz · January 2012

I've signed up for it, but I hate hate hate manually entering everything I've eaten. I find it so tedious!! Especially since I tend to cook complicated dishes with a lot of ingredients.

I agree with the PP though that it is really eye-opening to see what you eat.

Daisy77 · January 2012

I used it 5 years ago.... I lost 15 pounds in 3 months, all from DS and some from DD#1. I liked it, but the only pain was entering in all my food. They have a large database to pick from though, if they didn't have what I was using I entered it in once and it would stay there.

I liked that you earned points for doing stuff: reading articles, working out, drinking water, logging in, etc. You didn't get anything real for the points but they were still fun:)

For me it definitely helped as it made me realize how many calories I was eating vs. what I should be eating.

MrsBalletStar05 · January 2012

I started using it after my DS#1 was born, and continue to use it. I no longe enter my food intake, because I've learned enough that I don't feel I need it any more. I did enter my food in when I first started, and yeah - really teaches you a lot! Now I'm a fairly good guesstimator when it comes to calories, so I don't use that. I still enter and keep track of work outs though - I like to for fun :-) also, just realized there was an iPhone app, so I got that and entering stuff is even faster now!

brendas026 · January 2012

Love it, Im gonna start using it again after my daughter is born.

Webbie3 · January 2012

I used it and lost about 20 pounds. I really liked it. I didn't mind entering all my food individually, but if you eat the same things over and over (like I do), you can customize meals so it doesn't take as long to add. I also liked their recipes and meal suggestions. Good luck!

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