bigwies

I started the SparkPeople diet about two weeks ago and have lost 10 pounds already. It is free and can be found at https://www.sparkpeople.com . It has a really good tool to track your daily food consumption and gives you a realistic calorie budget and some cool reports to tell you how you are doing and help keep you on track.

Their program focuses on sustainable lifestyle changes and not simply on counting calories or points. My goal is to lose 50 pounds by my 25th college reunion in the spring, and I think I am well on my way to successfully achieving my goal.

Please let me know if anyone else has tried this program and its pluses and minuses.

goldfinch

I haven't tried the program but I am poking around on the site. Nice that it is free and there are a number of options. I put in the weight I started at in their calculator and they gave me the same goal as the goal I had decided on, and managed to reach in one year.

Ten pounds though is a lot of weight to lose in two weeks. Typically, what is advised is a pound or two a week, though it can vary depending on how big you are. You don't want to drop too fast because you can end up in starvation mode as the body starts conserving energy. This backfires resulting in it becoming more difficult to lose weight. Also, you may end up losing muscle as well as fat. However, I wouldn't worry too much given that you are just starting your weight loss because often the first pounds can come off fairly quickly. Partly the loss is water weight (sorry, but we are in large part water ) but better water that than losing muscle.

Can you share what you weigh, your height, age and sex? And how many calories they figure you should be eating?

goldfinch

Nice to see that you can keep track of fitness goals as well as eating goals. However, their default goal of 30 minutes a day, 4 days a week isn't going to cut it. Maybe to start if a person is really out of shape, but the goal likely should be more than double that, an hour a day 5 days a week. I don't want to pick on them too much though, so far I generally like what I see.

cyclokitty 

I use Sparkpeople and quite like it except the food tracking gets old very quickly. You can change the cardio set up -- I have mine set to cardio everyday for 2 hours. Nice that it now has a mileage tracking and mapping abilitity.

Push

I am on Sparkpeople, I can't say how the diet is because I don't really use that portion of the site but the community is great, I have met people on there that have pushed me to keep on track

goldfinch

I've poked around some more and Sparkman is a lot like Livestrong, which I use for calorie counting. I have the prejudice of familiarity so I prefer the Livestrong interface for calorie counting.

I entered my calories for breakfast this morning in Sparkman. I see that it has a daily calorie goal for me based on my weight, even though I do not have a weight loss goal. The goal is a range of 1200 to 1550, which is reasonable and the variability may be based on how much exercise I might do. My actual goal is 1450 to 1500 a day currently and I have to exercise quit a bit to be able to eat that much. For example, this week I maintained my weight of 108 averaging 1468 calories a day.

So, so far the numbers I am getting out of Sparkman seem reasonable but I am not sure that I want to switch from the familiarity of Livestrong. I do like the exercise tracker a lot better on Sparkman.

tony_merlino

I agree with what you said regarding the steady state of a diet, which I believe kicks in after the first week or two. At the beginning, a lot of us tend to lose more quickly because we've moved away from diets that were really high in salt. A lot of that first burst of weight loss is water, which is shed as the body stabilizes at a new hydrostatic equilibrium.

In the steady state, between one and two pounds per week is the right thing to aim for, and my experience is that the same diet that allows you to drop five or ten pounds in the first week, will level off at the sustainable rate of one to two pounds per week, unless you're REALLY starving yourself. I'm currently trying to aim for between 500 and 1000 calories per day less than what it would take to maintain my current (heavy) weight, coupled with aerobic exercise for about 45 minutes at least 4 times per week. (Every day would be great, but life happens...)

bigwies

When I started, I weighed in at 340. I am a 6'1" male and the program is suggesting between 2300 and 2700 calories per day. I have no doubt that some of the first 10 pounds was water weight, but that was no surprise to me. Down to 327 after 3 weeks and hoping to lose around 3 pounds/week.

bigwies

I agree that food tracking can be tedious, but for me this is the secret sauce. I find that simply going through the process of tracking what I eat helps me make better choices around food selection and portion size.

I also find the articles, quizzes and trivia great learning and motivation tools.

caphits

I'm gonna give it a go. It sounds like a good one.
I feel like my "goals" for calories are WAY too high though. I barely met the minimum goal for yesterday after putting in all the food I ate. Yesterday wasn't a good "diet day". If you know what I mean. Today was a terrible "diet day" and I was significantly UNDER my goal.

bigwies

I also find I have trouble hitting the minimum calorie recommendation someday, especially if I have been good about my choices. I view this as a positive, because I find that it allows me to transition to a healthier eating pattern with less hunger. Also make sure you are accurate about your portions. It is easy to under report if you don't measure things out. I use measuring cups and a scale to check my portion sizes. Good luck.

LoonyTick

I signed up at SparkPeople long ago, back before it was free. I lost some weight, went off of it, gained it back. I think I have lost and found the same 10 pounds for the last 5 or so years. Now I just do more exercise, and try to eat right. I lose between 1-3 lbs a week, depending on my exercise. I also hate writing down every morsel of food. I would do fine until lunch, then pig out at night. Now I give myself permission to eat whatever I want, so I usually don't. When I deprived myself, I went nuts knowing I couldn't have the food. Reverse psychology for the brain. Try it.

Bearbig

Counting= too much work for me. I use a modified Atkins diet ( won't give up my oatmeal or beer). When I started about 4 years I lost 40 lbs over the cycling season ( wwhich was not unusual for me) .
What is unusual is I only gain 10-15 lbs over the winter. I dont count cal. I snack on nuts and eat cheese as if it's going out of style ( and cholesterol went from220-190).
When wifey suggested it I thought I needed carbs for fuel ( cycle > 3000 miles/year) but I don't lack for power or bonk. Some days I can even hang with the hammer heads who I give up 20-30 years to!
Not for everyone. but works for me.