<p>It has been a long, slow fall off the exercise and sensible eating wagon.</p>
<p>I just started using the site. Great for tracking food and exercise. Lots of motivating factors and the ability to find exercise buddies. </p>
<p>Look me up as “Jopapgh”.</p>
<p>I used to use the site but found it too tedious to enter all the foods/recipes I eat in order to get the calories/nutritional values for my meals. Too weird for them I guess. I know most people eat only a limited list of foods regularly but I almost never make the same thing twice because I love to experiment.</p>
<p>I am on the sparkpeople list and get their emails every day. The emails mostly serve to make me feel guilty about not exercising more…</p>
<p>My daughter loves sparkpeople and it has been a great resource for her. It does sort of flood you with emails, etc.</p>
<p>You can control which emails you get. I like the exercise related ones. </p>
<p>I found a really supportive cycling forum. Just completed a 35 mile group ride today.</p>
<p>I come up with the best equivalent I can for meals. To me, the exact nutrients, calories, etc. are less important than the discipline of tracking. When I was aware of it and doing it I lost 25 lbs. I became complacent and gained 16 back.</p>
<p>If I keep my focus I will succeed.</p>
<p>Plus their forum posting mechanism has a spell checker!</p>
<p>I registered at the site when H developed Type II diabetes, so that I could calculate carbs for my recipes. Other than that, the e-mails are just too much information!</p>
<p>In regard to Type II diabetes that runs on both sides of my family, it is kind of much easier diet if you just eliminate bread, potatoes, pasta, rice and substiture them with vegies + fruits. That is what we have done (my H is diabetic), it frees time. Well, if you found that going to this site is working for you, than you are all set. But if you decided that you do not have time, here is alternative.</p>
<p>Hey anyone know how to join their college FB group?</p>
<p>I joined it on Jan. 1. I have lost 3 1/2 lbs. I do like it and I think the breakdown of dietary intake (fat, carbs, protein) has been eye opening to me and made me more aware of my very high intake of carbs. Over the past several years I have been gaining slowly and had tried Weight Watchers several times. It had worked for me in the past but I just could not make any progress on it the last few times. I really think it was because there was no discerning carbs from other types of calories. Now that I am more careful about carbs, I am losing weight. Slowly, but it is coming off. I also feel better.</p>
<p>I do agree that the food diary portion of the website is cumbersome and disorganized as far as food groups, etc. and it a lot of work to enter foods that are not on the lists. There are also a lot of foods that are commonplace but just not on the list. </p>
<p>Overall, though, it has been a good thing for me.</p>
<p>Makes me want to go lie down, after a big bowl of ice cream.</p>
<p>My almost 80 year old father is on Sparkpeople and I’m glad. I was worried that he was getting too isolated in his old age. Little did I realize that his “people” were online!</p>
<p>He meticulously enters in his daily menu, tweeks the meals if he sees that he doesn’t have enough of one food group or other, and then only eats what is on the menu. Yep, he’s got a lot more discipline than I have.</p>
<p>He also is on the over 70 chat board. When he tells me about it, it reminds me of being on CC (without the Parent Cafe).</p>