This guest post is by Biz from The Penthouse Clan. The Penthouse Clan is a new blog written by '2 couples - 4 friends, 4 very different people' who all live together in Cardiff.
I’m not one for dieting. I’m not good at it. The more I tell myself I can’t have that single Twix bar one day, the more I’ll be making up for being so ‘good’ the next day with 10 Twix bars. I also suffer with 24-Hour-Pound syndrome. Getting my 5 a day, drinking 8 glasses of water and exercising for 60 minutes on the cross-trainer for one day does not amount to losing 1 pound in weight. I am guilty of wanting instant results and if I don’t get them, I become despondent and sluggish and another 5 pounds heavier while I comfort eat myself into oblivion. If anything, dieting makes me put ON weight.
I’m not one for dieting. I’m not good at it. The more I tell myself I can’t have that single Twix bar one day, the more I’ll be making up for being so ‘good’ the next day with 10 Twix bars. I also suffer with 24-Hour-Pound syndrome. Getting my 5 a day, drinking 8 glasses of water and exercising for 60 minutes on the cross-trainer for one day does not amount to losing 1 pound in weight. I am guilty of wanting instant results and if I don’t get them, I become despondent and sluggish and another 5 pounds heavier while I comfort eat myself into oblivion. If anything, dieting makes me put ON weight.
So I gave up on dieting altogether and decided to just be healthier. And that’s where Spark People comes in.
Last year, my previous housemate Rachel introduced me to Spark People after I had gained a rather unsightly amount of weight over the Christmas period to help me monitor what I was eating, see where I was going wrong and work on fixing it. I never really got into it. I felt like I was pressuring myself to lose weight and it put me off. (In the end it turned out that a month in China last summer hiking a mountain or a gorge everyday got rid of the Santa belly.)
Annoyingly, I had signed up to receive all the emails I possibly could from Spark People, so even though I wasn’t actually using my account the emails were a constant reminder it was still there. A couple of weeks ago after checking my email to find yet another email from Spark People I finally succumbed to logging back in and seeing what all the fuss is about. And I’m so glad I did.
Spark People is so much more than an online food diary. It’s a community. And an active one at that! There is of course the online food diary which tells you exactly how many calories you’ve consumed for that day. However it will also calculate you food plans if you request (dietary requirements taken into consideration if required) and there is a nifty recipe calculator where you can enter your own recipe in to find out the nutritional information. The fitness tracker lets you put exercise that you’ve done for the day and will even come up with a fitness and strength training plan for you if you want. The weight tracker is a useful resource if you’re trying to lose weight. You can input starting weight and body measurements in and it will calculate it on various charts for you to see your progress as time goes on. My personal favourite part of this website is their recipe section. Being a bit of a foodie myself I love to try new recipes. Of course being primarily a dieting website, everything is low fat and are original recipes submitted by members of the community. The blog section is full of very inspiring stories about losing weight but also nice anecdotes about everyday life and reviews of films etc. And the articles section has some excellent information about leading a healthier lifestyle.
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Spark People is so much more than an online food diary. It’s a community. And an active one at that! There is of course the online food diary which tells you exactly how many calories you’ve consumed for that day. However it will also calculate you food plans if you request (dietary requirements taken into consideration if required) and there is a nifty recipe calculator where you can enter your own recipe in to find out the nutritional information. The fitness tracker lets you put exercise that you’ve done for the day and will even come up with a fitness and strength training plan for you if you want. The weight tracker is a useful resource if you’re trying to lose weight. You can input starting weight and body measurements in and it will calculate it on various charts for you to see your progress as time goes on. My personal favourite part of this website is their recipe section. Being a bit of a foodie myself I love to try new recipes. Of course being primarily a dieting website, everything is low fat and are original recipes submitted by members of the community. The blog section is full of very inspiring stories about losing weight but also nice anecdotes about everyday life and reviews of films etc. And the articles section has some excellent information about leading a healthier lifestyle.
Spark People isn’t just a website for dieting or losing weight; it’s also designed for people who just want to be healthier. You can set your own goals when you start an account. The most appealing thing about Spark People is the fact that all this is free!
If Spark People something you would be interested in, you can check out the website here. Feel free to update me on your progress! I would love to hear your experiences.
Biz x
I used Spark People back when I first dabbled in weight loss about 6 years ago. Back then I found it very Americanised, which meant I could never find any of the foods I ate, and inputting everything manually was a huge pain! Saying that, six years on, maybe more Brits have invaded!
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