SparkPeople

I don't personally see any benefit, even if it is free.

Free diet plan? I make my own.

Interactive meal planner? My meal plans are based on the grocery
circulars and what's on sale as far as fresh produce goes. I'm already
a fully-interactive meal planner. 😉

Free exercise plan? I plan my own.

Message boards? I post here. And though I'm posting via Google now, I
don't *have* to use a browser, but can use a newsreader when I want -
which is much faster than messageboard software.

Daily tips and newsletters? I don't need [censored] sent on their timetable,
if I want to read low-carb stuff, I'll go to the appropriate web sites
when I want to.

Recipes? Between this group and the low-carb sites I frequent, I have
a larger collection of recipes I'm planning to try than I'll likely
ever get around to anyways.

Food tracking database? Yeah, lotsa folks use Fitday, but I find it
too cumbersome. I prefer Excel myself. All the foods I commonly eat
are entered. It only takes a minute or two to look up a new food in
the USDA database and add it to my spreadsheets.

I don't see any benefit to this program, even if it's free. They're
saying they're a great deal compared to eDiets and WeightWatchers. I
guess. I'd not join those if they were free either - again, I don't
see any benefit.

And it's only free temporarily, it's usually $100/year. I can buy 145
lbs of chicken breasts (on sale) for $100 (though realistically, I
never buy more than 40 lbs at a time).

Quoted message said:

I don't personally see any benefit, even if it is free.

Free diet plan? I make my own.

Interactive meal planner? My meal plans are based on the grocery
circulars and what's on sale as far as fresh produce goes. I'm already
a fully-interactive meal planner. 😉

Free exercise plan? I plan my own.

Message boards? I post here. And though I'm posting via Google now, I
don't *have* to use a browser, but can use a newsreader when I want -
which is much faster than messageboard software.

Daily tips and newsletters? I don't need [censored] sent on their timetable,
if I want to read low-carb stuff, I'll go to the appropriate web sites
when I want to.

Recipes? Between this group and the low-carb sites I frequent, I have
a larger collection of recipes I'm planning to try than I'll likely
ever get around to anyways.

Food tracking database? Yeah, lotsa folks use Fitday, but I find it
too cumbersome. I prefer Excel myself. All the foods I commonly eat
are entered. It only takes a minute or two to look up a new food in
the USDA database and add it to my spreadsheets.

I don't see any benefit to this program, even if it's free. They're
saying they're a great deal compared to eDiets and WeightWatchers. I
guess. I'd not join those if they were free either - again, I don't
see any benefit.

And it's only free temporarily, it's usually $100/year. I can buy 145
lbs of chicken breasts (on sale) for $100 (though realistically, I
never buy more than 40 lbs at a time).

If you're using a dial up connection, you're right about the boards and
Usenet. If you have a broadband connection though, I find a reader to
be a pain in the ass and it takes up space on my hard drive. (I'm
waiting for the other shoe to drop on the free status of Google.)
Regarding them pushing what you don't want at you, you can enter all
your own foods, even in groups to make it faster. I agree with you
regarding Fit Day being too cumbersome and that's why I'm amazed that
I've never seen this one even mentioned here. It's way faster once you
get all your regular stuff in place. You can enter all your own
exercises and the boards are a nice compliment to Usenet and they're
more civilized and lacking the Spam and flame wars. You're more likely
to get an actual answer to a question there than you are here anymore.
This group has been at least partly hijacked by flamers and spammers.
So anyhoo, if you spend some time with that site, you might change your
mind, but like I said, it ain't mine so I did my part by sharing it.
Take it or leave it. Regarding the cost, I don't know where you got
the $100 figure, but when I joined back in July, it was $10, not $100.
I'm also under the impression that if you sign up now, your membership
is free for life. Maybe it has changed, but in the meantime I'm using
it because I like it. Different stokes. Peace and whooshes.