Quite honestly, our Useful Website of the Week this week is one of the most comprehensive, user-friendly, and fun weight loss websites I have found. SparkPeople.com is the name, my friends, and if losing weight/living a healthy lifestyle is your game, then this is a must-see website. As with many subscription based websites, you have to register (of course) to gain full access to what SparkPeople has to offer. But if you don’t want to register, I’ll try to break it down for you as best as I can here. Let me just say that from the moment I set my eyes on SparkPeople, I’ve been back everyday since.
Basically, SparkPeople is another weight loss website that offers all the same stuff that almost all of them do. That would be food journaling/tracking, exercise tracking, recipes, message boards, advice, etc. There are several things that set them apart from the pack though. First of all, the website is visually pleasing with it’s soothing yet vibrant colors, easy navigation, and wonderful start page that packs all your necessary info into one place. But that’s not all. Below are several other items that I have found to be particularly cool, different, and exciting in my use of SparkPeople:
Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome to this week’s installment of the Useful Website of the Week! This week I submit to you a fun little website that is devoted to giving us tips to improve our lives with a common sense approach. The website, Dumb Little Man, states that they are here to provide tips that will save us money, increase our productivity, or simply keep us sane.
I have found many posts on Dumb Little Man to be very practical and useful. Here are some of my favorites that make me laugh and yet still provide some real insight.
I often refer to the post, 10 Commandments for Dropping 10 Pounds & 10 Years, for a much needed reminder on how simple it actually is to be healthy. I tend to complicate health and weight loss, so it’s nice to have a post like this to get a reality check.
Read the rest of this entry »
This week’s Useful Website is one I just discovered yesterday and am already finding it to be tremendously valuable. Maria’s Last Diet was created by a husband and wife team that specialize in the psychological aspects of losing weight and keeping it off. They have put together a large database of articles concerning the typical weight loss issues but the advice given in the articles is anything but typical. The focus is centered on the mental aspects of losing weight and answering those questions relating to our struggles with food and weight.
The About page on Maria’s Last Diet describes the website as the following:
Members of the Maria’s Last Diet community share one thing: a true desire to lose weight and keep it off.
Maria’s Last Diet is here to help women diet successfully. It is not a diet in the usual sense. There is no one particular food plan. Our mission is to help you stay on whatever diet you choose. Sticking to your diet is the key to your weight loss success.
The right diet and weight loss tools, information and support will enable you to reach your weight loss goal. Maria’s Last Diet applies psychological principles, tried and tested in research and clinical practice, to the universal problems that women have with sticking to their diets.
Read the rest of this entry »
Do you know how many calories you eat a day? Do you regularly keep track of them? And if so, how? On paper, in your head, maybe an excel spreadsheet? Well, my Useful Website of the Week, caloriecount.about.com, is a free online calorie counting tool and is very helpful in keeping track of those numbers. Given my recent realization that I wasn’t eating enough calories, I am definitely finding this to be a handy resource.
Read the rest of this entry »
Something that we have a lot of in my household is clutter. It is not intentional and my husband and I are always trying to keep it clutter-free, but never-the-less, it still exists. Not only is there clutter on our shelves and counter-tops, but there is also plenty of mental clutter. It seems that so much of the time we are trying to rid ourselves of that as well. Enter ZenHabits.net, the Useful Website of the Week.
I have found this website to be truly useful in the war against clutter in our house, as well as our lives in general. It seems as though a clutter-free lifestyle is much more of a journey than a destination, and ZenHabits.net has been a very instrumental tool on our journey.
Read the rest of this entry »
The website I have chosen as the Useful Website of the Week is one that I have found to be incredibly informative and, well, useful! The website for iVillage’s Healthy Living Program is what I am referring to. This program is the most comprehensive online weight loss program I have found and the part that surprised me the most is that it’s FREE.
Read the rest of this entry »
Each week I am going to present you with a website that I consider to be useful. It might be about health & fitness, parenthood, technology, politics, recipes, funny stuff, or whatever, just as long as I consider it useful and something you should know about.
I believe that one of the ways to finding happiness in life is through giving. Whether it be allowing someone in front of you in traffic, donating used clothes, going around the world to do missionary work, serving our country, or visiting lonely folks in nursery homes, it’s all about doing something to help someone other than yourself (and yet, that does help you).
Read the rest of this entry »
