SparkPeople

I have used Spark People for years to track fitness and weight. I was shocked to log in this morning, only to find it gone. Where are my records? Where are my awards? What happened to my thousands of logged points? Worst of all, apparently the "new" Spark America is only for US citizens. This was a great motivational site, deserving of the highest praise. If I had to rate your support and user loyalty, I would give you a big "0" out of 5. Very poorly done Spark. You could have at least given notice on the site that this was about to happen. If you did, I missed it.

I LOVE the tracker! I have been using it for a while now and I track food, water and exercise. You also have access to a support group made up of people all over the world. You can join challenges or teams, it is all up to you! The best part is, it's free! You can use this with whatever food plan you are on. You can pay a little for the Spark diet plan but you do not have to, to use the whole site. Highly recommend for everyone who is trying to lose weight or keep it off!

I joined the SparkAmerica 2022 Spring Fit City Challenge team with great pleasure. A way to provide me quickly pace for spring time. Indeed, it is an interactive challenge that helps to improve my health. The team and leader are an extraordinary incentive for activity. Great, my lifestyle is extremely easy and successful.

Since taking Active PK for a week I have lost a few pounds eating the same foods as before. This has not happened even exercising 1 hour per day. So I am happy with this product.

I've been actively using and gaining knowledge from SparkPeople for many years now. I signed up when I just wanted to lose a few pounds. Of course, life got in the way and I ended up gaining some weight after my two children were born. As soon as I was ready, SparkPeople was right there and helped me get back in shape. I feel like I have so much knowledge of nutrition that I'm actually able to pass it along to my kids. It's a wonderful site and I'm glad it's around!

I love this DVD for so many reasons. Coach Nicole is so personable and encouraging. Her "back-up" girls have "real" bodies -- something you don't find very often on workout DVD's. The 28 plan on the DVD is awesome -- just click on the day you are on and it automatically starts the workout. So cool! I haven't seen any other DVD's with this feature. Finally, there is a count-down clock on the screen so you know how much time you have left, which definitely helped me stay focused and motivated!

This DVD has so much variety--it's not just your basic curls and squats that you've seen 100 times before. Coach Nicole has created fun and unique exercise combinations that are interesting to do and you really feel them, too! I love the 28 day workout calendar on the DVD menu, and the plan itself has so much variety to keep you from getting bored and help create "muscle confusion". The 28-day plan starts with shorter workouts to ease you into exercise and progresses you gradually over four weeks to harder and longer workouts. The 30 Minute Challenge routine is the best--it uses dumbbells like a kettlebell and you really work up a sweat.

I am loving this 28-Day Bootcamp! This is what I wrote about my Day 1 experience on Sparkpeople.com "This was a little tougher than I thought, but a very good workout! Although I will admit the warm could be a workout [in] itself. I had to be careful with the grapevine/mambo turns as I was working out on carpet, so the turns were a bit of a challenge. I like the idea of clicking the day on the calendar that takes you to the workout. I originally thought I had to click the warm/workout/cool down separately.

I've been a member of SparkPeople for several years. Initially I was all involved in the groups and the activity and the rah rah of the site. All good things. It was a very educational and informative year and I lost over 75 pounds. I learned a LOT. I don't use the site often anymore as a social support network. I've continued to lose weight - now over 100 pounds - and am keeping it off because of what I learned there. Now that I can live a healthy eating lifestyle in the 'real' world I no longer need or use the on-line support. They still send me helpful information via the newsletters and emails I subscribed to early on and I'll probably stay a member as a reminder of what I've accomplished, how much I learned, and what I still need to do each day. I would recommend this site to anyone dealing with weight loss issues.

I've been using sparkpeople.com due to the fact it was the first site I found that has a database of foods and nutrition information that I could use for calorie tracking, but there are other similar tools out there. There are big problems with the functionality of the website. The list of foods won't populate when I am searching "recent" or "favorite" foods, and I have to enter and re-enter my search terms. Then the list will finally populate but it disappears just as I am trying to choose what I ate from the list. Then foods that had an indicator onscreen that they were "added" for the day are not on my food log at all when I refresh the page or access my log from the phone app. And don't get me started on the buggy problems with the phone app! Sparkpeople is run by people with moderate scientific knowledge on weight loss-- not experts by any analysis-- but they are enthusiastic about their topic despite poor article writing, editing or soliciting skills. And there is clearly no one on their staff with current web design skills sufficient to compete in today's web market.

But hey, it's free. And if you already know how to use science to improve your weight and health the tools can be useful if you are patient with the poor functionality.