While I’m not trying to drop a size or two to fit into my wedding dress (a course of action, incidentally, I could not advocate LESS… especially since I’ve already been down that self-inflicted road as a bridesmaid), I have to admit that you’d be hard pressed to find one bride-to-be who wouldn’t like to /isn’t trying to change some physical feature prior to her day in the spotlight.
And it occurred to me that I spend just as much time trolling the net for recipes, workout info, weight loss advice, hair care enlightenment etc. as I do wedding planning and other various wedding-related lore. So I think it’s only fair that I expand my ramblings to include the wonderful worlds of health, nutrition, fitness, beauty – whatever it is that it takes to make a girl look & feel all purty-like.
Anyone who’s met me knows that it’s no secret that I like to eat. A lot. Seriously. Because of this, I’ve had to learn all sorts of tasty, exciting and smart things with which to feed myself. And, for those times that I couldn’t care less about the caloric or fat content of a family-sized serving of Pad Thai noodles (delivered hot and steaming from Springrolls… yummm), I’ve had to learn how to counter those lapses. Because I’d be lying if I said they didn’t happen. I’d likely be struck by lightening as well – but who’s judging, right?
Do yourself a favour & buy the damn dress in a size that already FITS you.
Enter Sparkpeople. I shudder to think of the man-hours that went into creating this behemoth of a site. But I’m eternally thankful to the folks who logged the time to do so. It makes my life so much easier to manage. Ok, it may not pay my bills or help me find spiritual enlightenment, but it helps to manage the girth of my arse. And that’s no small feat.
Sparkpeople is an online community that provides anything you could possibly need to stay motivated in working toward your own personal health & fitness goals. In addition to a virtual library of feature articles & videos (including online workouts: I, personally, am a fan of the New YOU Bootcamp) on nutrition, fitness, health and general well-being, Sparkpeople features a slew of forums/teams categorized by interest, geographical location, age, gender, you name it… there’s someone else out there you’ll click with for one reason or another. You can also find recipes, track your daily calorie consumption, sweat a few of them off and log that info as well. Need a new exercise idea to keep you motivated and/or interested (because – let’s face it – if boredom wasn’t such a huge factor, none of us would ever be out of shape)? There are plenty to be found. You can even set up our own personal Spark blog to ramble on about your struggles and accomplishments.
With its detailed (and I do mean detailed) Nutrition, Fitness, Weight & Measurement Trackers, you can keep a firm handle on your love handles (or lack thereof, as the case may be.) You can enter everything manually or you can enter a few parameters and let the site do all the work (ok, not the work, but at least most of the planning) for you.
Oh, and did I mention the best part? FREE. That’s right, kids. Free! No fees of any sort are involved in using this bad boy. That’s why it’s so deserving of this mention. Go. Check it out. You may be a bit overwhelmed at first (it is massive) but you won’t be sorry.
