Anyone else use Sparkpeople?

Can you give me the "too lazy to click the link and read up" version of what it is?

It's like the weight watchers online, except free. They take you through a thingy that asks you how much you weigh now, how much you want to lose, etc etc, and tells you how many calories (divided out by fat carbs and protein) you can consume and how many you need to burn off in order to meet your goal. It gives you a meal plan (which you can ignore and just record what you actually eat) and a strength training program (which, again, you can ignore and record your own thing). You also record your cardio and get neat graphs on your progress. And you can elect to set any goals you want in addition, and they will graph them up for you all nice.

Additionally, they are a nice reference library with videos and recipes and a community of people that interact via message boards and blogs and stuff.

Even if you don't want to lose any (or much) weight, it's a nice tool to maintain and make sure you're getting a balanced diet and whatnot, and to meet more targeted goals like losing inches or placing at a 5k run.

I totally thought this was a twilight thing =x

Mmmk my chubbeh ass is on there not that I have a freaking clue what I'm doing. LOL

The thing I don't understand is how much I need to do and what I need to eat and/or eliminate to reach my goal? This says i need to burn 860 calories per week to meet my goal in 1 years time. >< I'm regretting all those McDonalds fries right about now...

Sadly, not eating 2 things of fries would cut out an extra 1000 calories a week =x Cutting out real soda can help you lose 15lbs easily.

Following the meal plans might be a helpful start (they're not terrible) or at least following the protein/carb/fat balance they propose. They even make you a shopping list and you can swap things around and stuff.

When you log in your cardio it tells you how many calories you've burned. If you do the videos I think they say up front how many calories they're supposed to burn, which is nice. It's an approximation but I think the important thing is to get 30 minutes in the red zone and you should be good to go.

They don't count calorie burning for the strength training, but it's a good thing to do anyway. That's where I noticed most of the shaping taking place.

I started a team. Gibbor me your handles so I can invite you.

I totally read the link as sharkpeople from the main forum page *giggle* I'll go check it out later

Mines Laschae ... I know super creative!

Haha, same here. Your post made me realize that it's not sharkpeople!

Rawr! *bites*

Okay so we have 2 people on the TAC team. The more the merrier! Just lemmie know your handle and I'll invite you.

I'm currently adjusting my life to being a newly diagnosed type 2 diabetic. The hardest thing for me was giving up soda. The hardest consistent thing is reading labels. I didn't realize how /bad/ for you HFCS is, or how bad it makes things taste. Now if I want a soda, I will drive my happy bum to the walmart, walk to the back of the store (the 'ethnic' aisle) and purchase me a real sugar mexican coke. One bottle, 34g of carbs, no HFCS. Just 30g of sugar.... The effort of going to get one makes it so that I have to really want it. And I'm noticing that by then most of the time I stick the thing in the fridge for at least a week.

I'm not so concerned with cutting calories right now, I'm most concerned with counting carbs, balancing them and keeping the depression and panic at bay. Discovering what I can eat and what I can't. Trial and error. Small goals. And treats. One of the things that's been emphasized is that I can still have sweets - I just have to plan them. Usually I substitute a snack for them. Pepperidge Farm cookies - 3 is about 18g of carbs. I put the box into baggies. And froze half and the other half are in a cookie tin. Reach in, take out a single serving baggie. This works with chips too.

I made a page there ages ago and had recreated one a few months back. The site is really cool, but I don't even own scales, so it makes it hard to keep track of any gain or loss. It does help with keeping track of what you've eaten and your exercises though.

oooh scale! I'm gonna have to get one I estimated what I weigh based on what I weighed when I was pregnant (I have yet to have a kid and not gain back ever ounce). I'm so pleased with myself. When we got this treadmill I tried it could only go like a mile and a half speed and only for 10 minutes/.20 of a mile. I owned that bitch today! 28 minutes 1 MILE.

I don't own a scale either :X. I'd be checking five times a day. I weigh myself at the doctor's office or the grocery store.

i started on it! gonna have my best friend be my work out buddy ^_^.

The strength training programs/tracking have really improved since the last time I used them. There's a lot more customization - you can swap exercises or swap entire routines, and now you can schedule a full body every other day or rotate through one of three zones (upper, core, lower) every day (which I greatly prefer).

Strength training is really where I fall down - it's just so fucking boring . I'm optimistic about the updated system though.