Free Healthy Websites

For the last few months, I have been losing weight and making myself healthier, and have found several websites that have really helped me out along the way, and I want to share them with you!

Hungry Girl (http://hungry-girl.com/)

Hungry Girl is one of my favorite websites that I have ever found. The Hungry Girl is a woman named Lisa Lillien, and her phrase is "I'm not a nutritionist, I'm just hungry." Upon finding this site, and reading her catchphrase, I immediately knew that the Hungry Girl was going to be able to help me out because she sounds a lot like me with her weight loss goals and success.

Hungry Girl has a FREE daily e-mail that you can sign up for, and she's got something different every single day. Each Monday, the e-mail is all about food news. We learn about what new healthy food that may be hitting the shelves soon (or may already be out). Every Tuesday, Hungry Girl compares horrible food finds that are probably quite delicious, and how to either make them healthier yourself, or what to substitute in order to achieve the same level of taste satisfaction. On Wednesdays, Hungry Girl answers diet and nutrition questions that people send to her through the website. On Thursdays, she usually has recipes for food, and what its nutritional facts are, and most of the recipes are very simple to make, very healthy, and most important, very yummy. Then each Friday, the Hungry Girl e-mail is healthy tips for getting through the weekend. Most people tend to slack off more on the weekends with making healthy food choices, and this e-mail gives you tips and tricks for getting through some of that. All throughout the week, Hungry Girl has lots of little facts about food, lots of wonderful recipes, and just a lot of information all around for helping you get through life making healthy and tasty choices.

The other useful thing you will find on the Hungry Girl site is that she now has a cookbook available for purchase. I own this cookbook, and it is the best one I have ever owned. Every single recipe in it that I have tried so far (and it is pretty close to being the whole book!) has been very simple to make and very good. There are tons of recipes for "junk food" turned into healthier versions, some of which you can NOT tell the difference between the healthier version and its unhealthier counterpart.

Dotti's Weight Loss Zone (http://www.dottisweightlosszone.com/)

I think the most challenging thing for me over these last few months of losing weight has been eating out and finding healthy things to eat while in a restaurant. Restaurants tend to pack tons of fat and calories into every single meal they fix. But with Dotti's Weight Loss Zone website, I have found it lots easier finding healthy meals while I am out. I always plan what I am going to order in a restaurant before I even step foot inside the restaurant. This way, I am not persuaded into something much more fattening once I am there and looking at the pictures in the menu.

Dotti's Weight Loss Zone is maintained by this really adorable couple, Dotti and Al. They, too, have an e-mail that you can subscribe to. It only comes twice a month, and is filled with tons of inspiration and encouragement to the reader as they journey to losing weight and keeping that weight off. This website is best known for is its HUGE list of restaurants and their menus, along with the nutritional information for items in the menu. Dotti also has POINTS® values, which are a part of the Weight Watchers plan, for every item listed with each restaurant. But you don't have to be a part of Weight Watchers in order to get a lot of use out of Dotti's Weight Loss Zone.

Healthy Dining Finder (http://www.healthydiningfinder.com/)

Healthy Dining Finder is a website similar to Dotti's Weight Loss Zone, but the difference in them is Healthy Dining Find ONLY lists food items in restaurants that they consider "healthy". They have criteria for restaurants to be able to list their food on their site and be labeled as "healthy". Entrees (or full meals) have to include fruits/vegetables, a lean protein, or 100% whole grains. Entrees must have 750 calories or less, 25 grams of fat or less, and 8 grams of saturated fat or less. Appetizers, side dishes and desserts have to have 250 calories or less, 8 grams of fat or less, and 3 grams of saturated fat or less. Healthy Dining Finder also likes to feature menu items that are lower in sodium and cholesterol. Deep fried foods are excluded from the Healthy Dining Finder.

I actually really like this website because it only shows the healthiest food that a restaurant may offer, and saves me from having to read through the whole menu. But, this website does not list as many restaurants as Dotti's Weight Loss Zone, so I do sometimes still need to use that other site to find what food to eat when out in a restaurant.

Gyminee (http://www.gyminee.com/)

The Gyminee website says that it is "the premier fitness social network for detailed tracking, online accountability, and motivation". It is a website designed where you can set up your profile, your health goals - whether it be to lose, maintain, or gain weight - and they can help you do that by telling you what your fat and calorie intake should be each day, and how much exercise you need to be doing every day. You can monitor and record your food and keep a daily food journal, as well as recording what activities you have done, which Gyminee will then tell you how many calories you burned.

There are also various groups you can join within Gyminee, and you can interact with other Gyminee users. You can offer encouragement to others, or gain encouragement yourself to continue on your journey. You can also have "friends" on Gyminee (they are called your "gym buddies"), which just offers a more specialized type of encouragement and networking, and forms a better accountability for making healthier life choices day in and day out. There are also tons of exercise and fitness ideas. I find it hard sometimes keeping my workouts from becoming boring and Gyminee is a great resource for finding something new to do.

I like this website a lot because of the ability to record my food and activities each day. There have been studies done that people who record their food each day lose twice as much weight as those who don't!

The Daily Plate (http://www.thedailyplate.com/)

The Daily Plate is a lot like Gyminee in the sense that it is a free online food journal. Their website has over 374,900 foods in the database to choose from, and it can tell you the fat, calories, sodium, fiber, and anything else that can be found in a food's nutrition facts. They also have a food calculator, to help you decide how many calories you should be eating each day, as well as a fitness log. I actually like this website a little better than Gyminee just because of the look and feel of the site. It is really just a personal preference, as they both really do basically the same things.

All Recipes (http://allrecipes.com/)

All Recipes is a website I have actually been using for years finding new recipes to make with my family. I only recently discovered that you can register on their site to do all sorts of things. You can upload your own recipes, along with images of your dish. When you enter all of this information, it will even tell you the nutrition facts of your recipe. That's pretty cool! You can rate and give reviews of other users' recipes, as well as save recipes to your very own "recipe box", so you can have easier access to the recipes that you like the most. All in all, this website is amazing with all the different things it allows you to do, and it is very helpful in making smart food choices.

All of these websites are very helpful, and each of them get visits from me every single day. I have lost close to 40 pounds, and will use any tool I can get my hands on to help maintain my current weight - especially when those tools are FREE!