I started using Sparkpeople last year. It's a pretty good site for managing your weight and health. It has food tracker and exercise tracker, you can track most anything actually. Plus it has a huge database of food, much of that foods' values are questionable though since they are entered by people, and some people only care about calories, and won't bother to enter in carbohydrate values or anything else, or may even enter erroneous values. In any case, if it's a processed food, you'll probably find that someone has eaten it before, and if it isn't there, you can create the value yourself and share it with the everyone if you want.
It also has an Iphone app that is free. The app is really useful for tracking calories, and looking up nutritional info on the fly. It works better than the full site actually. It's simpler and easier to use.
Livestrong, I started using that last week to see if I liked it. It's got a cleaner interface and it has less of a community support feel, at least as far as I've explored it. It seems more pay oriented too. I keep seeing the ads for how much I'd pay a month to get full functionality. Obviously they limit useful aspects to get people to pay a monthly fee.
I tried the app, and to get the app to talk to the website, you have to pay, so I didn't even bother trying it. Why you greedy Livestrong, you can't live off of ad revenues eh?
They both have their pluses and minuses. Livestrong is more low carb oriented and has a yuppier health and exercise nut feel to it, while Sparkpeople feels more like a clubhouse of desperate housewives trying to fit in their old jeans by logging their calories and exercise minutes. They both have diabetes options, but Livestrong's keeps crashing when I try to track my glucose or insulin doses. Both are flexible, both have pay options, Sparkpeople feels friendlier, it has a motivational point system, to make the site more sticky - you get points for reading articles or tracking your calories, there's even a log in bonus wheel spin that gives you points, and bonus spins! The points aren't good for anything, except the more you accumulate, you'll see a little badge icon next to your name change. I think I'm on reward level 4 now. Silly as it is, the reward system does encourage you to use the site, and the more support you can find online, means the more you're likely to stick to and enjoy your lifestyle changes.
Also, I don't think you have to pay for the Sparkpeople calorie tracker app, but that might not be the case anymore.
It also has an Iphone app that is free. The app is really useful for tracking calories, and looking up nutritional info on the fly. It works better than the full site actually. It's simpler and easier to use.
Livestrong, I started using that last week to see if I liked it. It's got a cleaner interface and it has less of a community support feel, at least as far as I've explored it. It seems more pay oriented too. I keep seeing the ads for how much I'd pay a month to get full functionality. Obviously they limit useful aspects to get people to pay a monthly fee.
I tried the app, and to get the app to talk to the website, you have to pay, so I didn't even bother trying it. Why you greedy Livestrong, you can't live off of ad revenues eh?
They both have their pluses and minuses. Livestrong is more low carb oriented and has a yuppier health and exercise nut feel to it, while Sparkpeople feels more like a clubhouse of desperate housewives trying to fit in their old jeans by logging their calories and exercise minutes. They both have diabetes options, but Livestrong's keeps crashing when I try to track my glucose or insulin doses. Both are flexible, both have pay options, Sparkpeople feels friendlier, it has a motivational point system, to make the site more sticky - you get points for reading articles or tracking your calories, there's even a log in bonus wheel spin that gives you points, and bonus spins! The points aren't good for anything, except the more you accumulate, you'll see a little badge icon next to your name change. I think I'm on reward level 4 now. Silly as it is, the reward system does encourage you to use the site, and the more support you can find online, means the more you're likely to stick to and enjoy your lifestyle changes.
Also, I don't think you have to pay for the Sparkpeople calorie tracker app, but that might not be the case anymore.
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