Catch the Spark

I keep seeing all these people talking about SparkPeople in their blogs, and I had to know what all they hype is about. I registered with them a few days ago, and I'm really impressed with what I see there, especially considering that the service is completely free!

SparkPeople is a collection of online tools and resources designed to help you get healthy. For most of us that means losing weight. The site works very similar to Weight Watchers online (which helped me shed 30lbs about three years ago, which I have gradually gained back, and then some). You track your meals and snacks online, as well as your daily exercise, but rather than keeping a tally of Points (like WW), it actually keeps track of key components of your diet - calories, fat, carbs, sodium, protein, calcium, etc. It has a great report function that allows you to print out a nifty pie chart that shows what percentage of your nutrition each day is coming from carbs, proteins, and fat, and shows you what to aim for. You can choose to receive daily emails with motivational, nutritional, and/or exercise tips, and they have a whole library of videos that demonstrate different stretches and exercises. They also have recipes online, and you can enter your own so you can track the nutritional info. You can either use the menus they have online, or just journal your own food choices.

Another cool thing about SparkPeople (different from WW online) is that you set other specific goals that are not directly tied to how many pounds are coming off. These are goals which lead to habit change, which is so important in maintaining weight loss. My nutritional goal is to drink my 8 8oz-glasses of water each day; my exercise goal is to stretch for 10 minutes/day (this is in addition to any cardio/strength training done during the week); and my motivational goal is to journal once/day. All these little micro-goals that aren't focused on weight are awesome for those of us who get discouraged when the rest of our diet isn't going well - you can see that you are still taking positive, healthy steps.

And the last fun part of SparkPeople is earning points! You can do all kinds of things around the website to earn points each day - track your food, reach your mini-goals each day, post on the message boards, etc. And you earn "trophies". I just earned my first one today (I'll try to post it later). If you're curious about SparkPeople, you can go there via my link on the sidebar!
First trophy earned...