Losing Weight with Social Networking
Category: Patricia Snodgrass
Anyone who knows me well enough knows that I've been struggling to control my weight for years. While I was a very slim child growing up in Korea, I gradually gained weight once in the states and Americanized with Happy Meals and pizza (I didn't have my first cheeseburger until I was in the 4th grade). I managed to lose all the weight by middle school but once away from the watchful eyes of my mom, the weight slowly crept back during college, and even more once I began working full time. And like many, I was in denial that I was actually at fault with my food intake. I never was much of a junk food consumer (like my mom, I rarely allowed sugary snacks in the house). Once reality set in, I finally took action. Fed up with making excuses and allowing myself to remain sedentary, I finally began monitoring myself and the results were, well, cringeworthy.
As a child of the post-information age, I immediately sought my comfort — teh intarwebs. In doing so, I discovered a unique way to monitor and lose weight. Social networking is a perfect medium to communicate with people just like yourself through message boards and personal community pages where others can monitor your losses and achievements and leave comments of encouragement. Even Weight Watchers (which I have recently joined) has remarketed itself with an innovative online tracker that takes you out of its infamous weekly meetings into the comfort of your home, and revamped its site to improve the message boards. No matter how secluded you might be, you're never alone online!
And while for-pay sites like Weight Watchers and eDiets are effective, I have discovered a fantastic, FREE community that helps you monitor your diet, exercise, and tracks your weight loss — Traineo! As a geek, I love how polished the site is and how it's been tricked out with all kinds of AJAX features. They even have specialized groups within the community that you can join and chat with others with similar interests (I have joined the Wii group, for instance). Here's my profile - http://patgirl81.traineo.com/ - I have nothing to hide. Though not as robust as MySpace or Facebook (your friends are "motivators") and interaction with members outside of message boards is limited, it is still fantastic for the price (did I mention it was free?) not to mention pretty to look at.
All in all, social networking + weight control = it works!
And what's a blog post without a LOLcat:
Posted By: Susan Cline | Date Published: 5.13.2008 | Comments (3)