Free Online Resources to Weight Loss and Fitness

You've made your resolution to lose weight and get fit. The first few days you begin the process of adjusting or perhaps even depriving your food and calorie intake. Maybe you've joined a gym or started an at home workout regimen. But, what do you do when your resolve begins to fade?

I have explored three free websites that may help you achieve your goals.

Real Age

Most of you have heard of realage.com. Some have taken the test to see if we are older or younger than our calendar years. But did you know that realage.com also has resources to help you lose weight and get fit?

Some resources you will find at realage.com are; menu planners with calorie count, fat count, full nutritional information; workout and fitness videos and a goal planner. You can also get articles, tips and newsletter subscriptions. The message boards can be a great support system. No matter the goal, realage.com could be a fantastic resource to help you attain you goal.

In addition to diet and weight loss realage.com also has stop smoking resources and financial fitness resources.

Realage.com is like Disneyland, you could spend the day looking around and still not see it all.

Sparkpeople.com

Sparkpeople.com is also a wealth of resources to help you get fit, healthy and lose weight, among other goals.

There are set meal plans, so you don't even have to think up your own menu. Substitutions are available or you can add food to create your own menu. You can use the member generated recipe files with all the nutrition information and save your favorites to your own recipe box. The nutrition tracker helps you keep track of your food intake. You can track around 80 nutrients including fats and calories.

You will find a fitness tracker to set goals and track your workouts. To help you with workouts you can find a variety or videos and demos, including printable instructions. There are exercises with and without equipment.

A fitness journal, appointment calendar and your own blog space can help you stay on track and committed

Message boards and teams in a variety of categories, such as amount of weight to lose, age groups or geographic location can also help with your resolve.

Health articles and videos offer information to help with nutrition, fitness, motivation, news and wellness to list a few.

Though it was a bit confusing getting started, it was fun and the wealth of information was well worth the effort.

Fitday.com

Fitday.com is not as involved as the previously mentioned sites. However, it is much simpler to use. You will not find workout videos or motivational articles. What you do get is a straightforward set of databases to track your diet and weight loss.

The fitness log is chock full of activities, whether you have done an all out workout, simply walked the dog, or washed your dishes. You will likely find your activity listed in the activities database. The log starts out with a 24-hour sedentary entry. As you enter activities the 24-hours counts down and calculates your burned calories.

A meal tracker has many popular foods already programmed into the database. You simply enter a food into a search box and your choices pop up. You select your food and it is entered into your daily meal plan along with the nutritional information.

The weight tracker and goal setter allows you to enter your weight and measurements from the beginning date to your goal weight.

There is a journal for notes and thoughts on your progress. I am finding that a journal can be very helpful in the how and why of eating and gaining weight.

A cute little mood chart tracks your moods and emotions. At first I thought it was just for fun, but it has occurred to me that mood effects when and what I eat and if I exercise. Keeping a record of my moods could be very revealing information.

Fitday.com is complete with a calendar and reports. If you are more apt to work alone and prefer to spend less time tracking your progress, perhaps fitday.com is for you.

Though fitday.com is free with all of the tools mentioned, even more features are available with a paid membership.

In closing, it doesn't have to cost a fortune to find support to lose weight and get fit. These are only a few free and fun ideas to help you in your quest to find a healthy and slim new you.