Spark People Review

Joining Fee:

SparkPeople provides users with a vast set of features and community benefits completely free of charge!

Features:

Diet Features:
- TheSparkDiet is a four-stage journey
  - Stage 1 acts as a springboard to help prepare you for the other stages by focusing on smaller goals first;
  - Stage 2 provides the building blocks for a healthy lifestyle;
  - Stage 3 teaches you to continue your new habits while staying motivated and consistent;
  - Stage 4 celebrates the culmination of your hard work and helps you maintain your success, set new goals, and help others do the same.
- Food tracker
- Personalized meal plans
- Submit your own recipes and use the free recipe calculator.
- Recipe of the Day: SparkPeople.com's tasty, easy-to-prepare recipes and kitchen tips make healthy cooking refreshing and fun.
- Food Showdown: A daily competition between two similar food options. Do you know which one is the low-cal winner? Test your knowledge and learn to make smarter choices.
- Serving size conversion calculator.
- Calorie calculation 101 - determine the number of calories that is right for you.
- Nutrition reference guide - facts about calories, carbs, fats, proteins, vitamins, minerals, and fiber.
- Common Foods Comparison - see which common foods are high or low in calories, fat, carbs, and protein.
- Food Focus - helpful facts and recipes for foods which are rich in nutrients.
- Food Nutrient Look Up: Find out what Nutrients make up the foods you eat.

Fitness Features:
- Customized fitness plan for members.
- Quickly and easily print illustrations and instructions from SparkPeople's extensive list of Upper Body Exercises, Lower Body Exercises, Core Exercises, and Stretches.
- View hundreds of exercise demos designed for beginners and advanced users.
- Watch streaming online exercise videos that you can do at home.
- Specialty Workouts - 10 minute workouts and 30 minute workouts.
- More Cardio Workouts - to add fun to your routine and improve your fitness level.
- Fitness Reference Guide provides an in-depth look at the elements of proper fitness:
  - Aerobic Exercise
  - Strength Exercise
  - Stretching
  - Anaerobic Exercise
  - Warm Up, Cool Down
  - Exercise Intensity
  - Body Composition
  - Pain & Injury
- Walking Guide - provides tips and strategies for effective walking.
- Stretching Guide - to improve exercise performance and add variety to your daily routine.
- Calories Burned Lookup: find out how many Calories you Burn when you do an exercise.
- Use Interactive Fitness Calculators to measure your progress and assess your fitness level (BMI Calculator, Target Heart Rate Calculator, Waist to Hip Ratio Calculator).
- Healthy Lifestyle Scale: Enter a few quick numbers and get an instant picture on how healthy your day has been.

Community Support:
- Message Boards: active message boards contain a wealth of information and support. Get answers from SparkPeople's experts and other Community members.
- SparkTeams are created and run by members. You can join or start a Team for any interest or goal, from scrap booking to soccer.
- SparkPages: by becoming a member and creating a SparkPage, you can share your goals and progress through photos, blog entries and more.
- SparkPoints motivation program.
- The SparkPeople Family Adventure allows SparkPeople members to include their family members in their own health adventures. You can track basic healthy habits for everyone in your family and interact with others in the Family Adventure Community.
- SparkPeople Fuel For Improvement System is a program of personal improvement that helps you achieve goals in any area of your life. It focuses on creating good habits, breaking bad ones and getting a little closer to your goals every day. The four cornerstones of the system areFocus, Fitness, Fire and Positive Force.

Expert Advice:
- Hundreds of Free Articles about Fitness arranged under the following themes:
  - Eating Away From Home
  - Healthy Habits
  - Meals and Food
  - Nutrient Buzz
  - Pitfalls and Plateaus
  - Quick and Easy
  - Seasonal and Holiday tips
  - Special Concerns
- Hundreds of Free Articles about Nutrition arranged under the following themes:
  - Exercise Basics
  - Family & Lifestyle
  - Fitness Equipment How To's
  - Focused Fitness
  - Pitfalls and Plateaus
  - Seasonal and Holiday Tips
  - SparkPeople Workouts
  - Special Concerns
- Hundreds of Free Articles about Motivation arranged under the following themes:
  - Goal-Setting Techniques
  - Inspiring Stories
  - Picking Yourself Back Up
  - Seasonal and Holiday Tips
  - SparkPeople Buzz
  - Staying Motivated
- Hundreds of Free Articles about Wellness arranged under the following themes:
  - Dealing with Depression
  - Emotional Health
  - Healthy Lifestyles
  - Look as good as you feel
  - Mind and Body
  - Rest and Relaxation
  - Stress Relief
  - Surviving Seasonal Allergies
  - Weight Maintenance
- Health Guide on SparkPeople: combines content from trusted sources like Harvard Medical School with SparkPeople's own content and community to help you integrate your diet and fitness program with your overall health.
- Health A-Z: A fantastic medical reference arranged under the following themes:
  - What Is It?
  - Symptoms
  - Diagnosis
  - Expected Duration
  - Prevention
  - Treatment
  - When To Call A Doctor
  - Prognosis
  - Additional Info
- SparkPeople Conditions Centers are in-depth guides to help you prevent and manage the health conditions that matter to you, including:
  - Depression
  - GERD (Heartburn)
  - High Blood Pressure
  - High Cholesterol
  - Insomnia
  - Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)
  - Osteoarthritis
  - Seasonal Allergies
  - Type 2 Diabetes
- Healthination: Read about the latest Health-related news and watch health videos brought to you by SparkPeople's partner Healthination.
- Best of SparkPeople Daily: The best of SparkPeople.com comes to you daily-nutrition, fitness and motivation articles to help you reach your goals.
- Exercise Tip of the Day: Get exercise demonstrations, tips, and more from SparkPeople.com's fitness experts.
- Family Health and Wellness: From fitness ideas to quick meals, these daily tips and strategies will help your family develop healthy habits that last a lifetime.
- Healthy Reflections: Daily inspiration. Use these quotes and stories to stay motivated.

Help Files / Technical Support:
- The extensive list of FAQs should help you find a solution to problems which may arise. If not, you can also e-mail SparkPeople's support service at: support@sparkpeople.com

Extras:
- SparkPeople's quizzes and assessments offer a fun way to test your knowledge on nutrition, fitness, and health, and to learn more about yourself!
- Buy fitness DVDs recommended by SparkFitness.com
- Special Offers: SparkPeople periodically sends coupons and special offers on behalf of their partners.

Editor's Verdict:

SparkPeople.com is the only premium, personalized weight loss and healthy living website that is completely free of charge. Business Week recently named SparkPeople.com "Best of the Web" in the health category, well above many of the other free services out there. Like our top ranked sites (Diet.com, eDiets.com, DietWatch.com, JillianMichaels.com, DeniseAustin.com) SparkPeople.com has lots of excellent diet and exercise features. It also has a vast online community with over one million members. Spark People introduces its dieters to a new approach to weight loss, where users learn to live a healthy lifestyle, not just follow a diet plan. This attitude to the long term (as well as the fact that the service is free) makes Spark People stand out in an area where there are so many leading sites and so many programs claiming to have 'the answer'.

When they sign up to Spark People, users get the opportunity to decide whether they wish to use the program for weight loss, or simply for the maintenance of a healthy lifestyle. Whilst this choice can be amended at any time, by establishing early on what a user's intentions are when it comes to using the site allows Spark People to ensure that users have access to the best tools for the job, right from the start. Those wishing to diet can set their weight loss goals right at the start of their membership, based, of course, on a sensible calculation from a BMI Calculator. Spark People then provides users with daily calorie breakdowns from the food they have eaten; complete with graphs and charts to allow users to see how their calorie intake translates to changes in their weight. Finally in terms of diet, Spark People users get access to more than 200,000 healthy eating recipes that are hosted on Spark Recipes. This is the largest and most impressive diet recipe directory that we have come across in our reviewing of this category - even more than our highest rated sites in this category. Impressive!

In terms of fitness features, users aren't let down either. They can make good use of an online fitness planner to decide what activities they would like to take part in. Users can also use the database of exercises and workouts to establish how many calories each exercise burns, so that they can use this information to identify a calorie balance for the day. In terms of community features, users get access to lively blogs, message boards and forums, can share recipes using the Spark Recipes site and even buddy up with other Spark People users to support each other. Spark People certainly seems to have it all wrapped up!

While Spark People really is an amazing free service, the fact that the service is offered free of charge to dieters could prove to be a bit of a disadvantage, too. As the service is free, there is no extra incentive to stick to the program because it is free of charge. A free service is great if you're one of that rare breed of people who don't need much motivation or inspiration to reach your weight loss goals. But for most of us, a little financial incentive and an inspiring mentor that empowers us to achieve our goals can make all the difference. We recommend that you go ahead and join SparkPeople.com (for free) to have full access to its data bank of useful resources, articles, tips and tools (and the Spark Recipes bank of 200,000 health foods) we're sure you won't regret it!

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Spark People Reviews