Most of us don’t have the resources or the time to work with personal trainers or nutrition experts to get us eating right, shaping up, and losing weight. We do, however, have the Internet—an incredible resource for finding free expert resources specific to our personal needs, including online tools that make healthier living easier to accomplish (including apps that can be downloaded to smartphones).
Food and Nutrition
NutritionData.com
Although this website is affiliated with Self magazine, its information is equally valuable to men and women. This website talks about nutrients in the food we eat and which foods have the highest nutritional value. Tested recipes help achieve nutritional goals. The database (largely sourced from the USDA’s National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference) has information on thousands of foods.
Other key features are a nutrition blog and plenty of online tools that compare the nutritional value of foods, search for foods with specific nutrients, and establish dietary goals. The daily-needs calculator is handy for determining individual daily nutrition and calorie needs.
Epicurious.com
Epicurious is about food, recipes, and menu planning. Affiliated with Bon Appétitmagazine, it advertises itself as a website for “people who love to eat.” Recipes are usually creative and challenging—but not necessarily time-consuming. Check out the “quick-and-easy” options.
Links go from the most basic “how to cook” to “around the world in 80 dishes.” Recipe guides come with instructional videos.
WHFoods.com
World’s Healthiest Foods is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to sharing a vast database of science-based nutritional information on fruits and vegetables. Other features include links to the 127 healthiest foods, essential nutrients, recipe of the week, food of the week, in-home cooking demo, and a seven-day menu plan for renewed vigor and energy.
The food advisor questionnaire is a helpful tool that analyzes personal nutritional status, identifies nutritional deficiencies, and recommends healthy foods and recipes. Four-day meal planners for people with specific health conditions are also available.
Food-Related Search
WhatsOnMyFood.org
Created by the Pesticide Action Network, this website provides data on pesticide residues typically found on conventional foods. Searches can be performed according to food or pesticide. Clicking on a food type reveals the most common pesticide residues for that food, according to the USDA Pesticide Data Program, as well as probable routes of exposure, human health effects, and environmental impacts. Links are also provided for relevant journal articles.
A free iPhone app provides a searchable database that links pesticide food residue data with the toxicology for each chemical, providing an easy-to-search format. Pesticide levels can also be compared between organic and conventional foods.
Calorie-Counting
Calorific Noom.com/products/#calorific
This program is anti-calorie counting, which it points out is time-consuming. Instead, foods are classified by color to help users recognize eating habits. Healthy foods are coded green, moderately health foods are yellow, and unhealthy foods are red—a salad would be green and a candy bar would be red.
Calorific calculates a star rating for your eating as the day progresses, providing real-time feedback on the quality of your meals in the form of a three-color pie chart. The “default” goal is 50 percent green, 35 percent yellow, and 15 percent red. Users report the pie chart is an easy and effective way to show eating trends. Calorific can also track water consumption during the day. The drawback of the program for detail-oriented people is the lack of precise food data.
Eatery.massivehealth.com
The Eatery is even less detail-oriented and fact-based than Calorific—instead of colored pie charts, the Eatery approach consists of taking a photo of your meal, uploading it, and waiting for crowdsource responses on how healthy it is, rating the meal on a scale from fit to fat. Also, when new photos are added to your feed, you can comment on other users’ meal photos.
Although Eatery users find this method motivational and enjoy the social interaction, crowdsource feedback is probably not that accurate and The Eatery does not provide a nutrition database. Even so, users can quickly scan photos of their meals to identify unhealthy eating trends.
Weightwatchers.com
Weight Watchers is well known as an effective way to lose weight. Its mobile app, however, provides just a few basic services, such as a point system for tracking food, success stories, and featured recipes. Each food consumed during the day is given a point value. The objective is to stay within a certain point total for the day.
To go beyond these minimal functions and tap into more useful tools (such as a searchable database of more than 30,000 foods), users must pay a monthly fee to Weight Watchers Online. Plenty of free apps provide these tools for free.
Myfitnesspal.com
This website/smartphone app makes counting calories easy. The core of the program is a comprehensive database on more than 2.3 million foods and restaurant items, along with an easy-to-use food journal. Users can add foods at any time, including their own recipes. A built-in application uses a smartphone’s camera as a barcode scanner to read UPC codes on food items and access the related information from the database.
Discussion forums allow users to connect with each other, share goals and experiences, and make new friends around the world. This can result in surprisingly strong bonds as individuals provide support and follow each other’s progress.
Fitness and Training
Stepforwrd.com
Joining Step Forward provides access to online tools that track fitness activities, medications and supplements, sleep, and water intake. The site is continuing to build its food database and encourages users to make suggestions. The limited food database can be frustrating, however—for example, there was no listing for string cheese at the time of this writing. For the typical American, the site is probably useful. However, if you are an informed consumer, or eat specialty foods or follow a restricted diet, this website will likely be inadequate for your needs.
Also, for the sleep function, hours cannot be logged in half-hour increments; this makes sleep totals inaccurate, especially for weekly or monthly totals.
Americaonthemove.org
This site provides web-based programs, tools, and resources for individuals, families, groups, and communities, including informative articles and blogs. Food and exercise can be tracked, although entering data can be cumbersome. Many of the tools are fact sheets with basic information. The site’s interactive tools don’t go much beyond step trackers.
Unfortunately, this is a boring site. It is certainly well-intentioned for improving eating and exercise habits, and provides solid information; however, the site lacks creativity and visual stimulation and tends to be slow. In its present state, it can’t compete with what already exists.
Endomondo.com
This smartphone app will track your running, cycling, or other physical activities. It’s easy to calculate your route on a map and monitor key metrics such as distance, time, speed, average speed, altitude, and heart rate. Voice alerts can also be programmed to announce performance milestones or reminders. Other Endomondo users can also give words of encouragement during your run. Users can take a previous workout as a goal and access the audio coach to help them beat it.
On the downside, online reviews say you can’t control the playlist while listening to your iPod.
SportyPal.com
SportyPal is a mapping tool that tracks route, position, speed, distance, elevation, and calories expended. Performance stats can also be generated on maps and graphs, including total time, distance, and maximum speed. Users can still listen to music, make or receive phone calls, or send and receive messages on their smartphones while using the application. A community feature allows users to post results, follow other members, and get new workout ideas.
Cyclists have noted that SportyPal consumes too much battery power on longer rides, sometimes necessitating shutting down the program in order to maintain phone capability. Incoming phone calls and texts may also interfere with tracking. Some users have also recently reported pop-up ads that clutter their screen.
CardioTrainer Noom.com/products/#cardiotrainer
CardioTrainer allows you to track all your indoor and outdoor fitness activity. Functions include counting calories burned, plotting your course, counting steps, and monitoring heart rate. The program will automatically pause when you stop moving. Voice feedback provides real-time information on distance, time, pace, and calories burned. It’s easy to post your numbers and compare your results with other users around the world.
For a fee of $2.99 each, other functions can be added, such as setting up a weight-loss plan or a program for competing against your best times. Although CardioTrainer has received generally solid reviews online, a number of complaints have been made about GPS and audio/music malfunctions.
FitWatch.com
This site enables users to track their fitness and nutrition programs. Members start by opening a calorie tracker account, reviewing the plentiful articles and videos, and designing a personal weight-loss or fitness program. Online tools for calorie deficit, weight-loss target date, body fat percentage, body mass index, basal metabolic rate, and calories burned help determine baseline numbers for tracking progress. Blog entries are well written.
A body-building and weight-training section provides access to training, nutrition, and cardiovascular fitness materials by experts such as Holly Rigsby and Tom Venuto. Titles include “Ten Ways to Exercise at Home with No Equipment.”
Fitness.com
This “global fitness community” offers a vast selection of exercises, articles, and recipes. Many of the everyday exercises can be done around the house without special equipment. Detailed instructions and pictures are provided for each exercise step, making it easy to create customized workout programs.
Other features include sample recipes and exercise videos. In addition to the standard calculators for body mass index and basal metabolic rate, online tools include a five-minute fitness test, 12-minute run test, hidden carb finder, and Greek proportions—which determines your ideal physical measurements based on the ancient Golden Ratio.
RunKeeper.com
Serious runners use RunKeeper to chart routes and monitor and track their running activities and metrics, including speed and distance progress over time. These data can be stored and analyzed to improve workouts and establish new goals. The program utilizes the GPS function in smartphones to provide accurate data regarding pace, distance, time, and calories burned.
Built-in audio cues through the headphones provide stats, updates, and coaching during runs. Weight can also be updated to keep “calories burned” as accurate as possible. Detailed reports showing trends in key metrics during individual runs as well as over time can be accessed. RunKeeper is also a good app for walking, hiking, and biking.
Medicine and Health
EverydayHealth.com
This website has an abundance of information. “Health A-Z” and “Drugs A-Z” are loaded with links that connect readers with articles, recipes, and other key sources of information. Other sections of the website are a symptom checker, food and fitness advice, and groups with live discussions.
Online tools include a recipe box, meal planner, pollen counter, and calculators for body mass index and body fat. There are plenty of free apps too, such as tracking health conditions like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
MedHelp.org
A stroll through this website, which calls itself “the world’s largest health community,” reveals a wealth of articles, advice, forums and discussion groups, and success stories regarding healthy living. Healthy living groups focus on male health, female health, nutrition, parenting, pregnancy, senior care, and weight loss.
If you are looking for health-related smartphone apps, this is the place to start. Nearly 100 applications are available—these include a drug-interaction checker and trackers for food, weight, mood, sleep, ovulation, exercise, and pain.
RealAge.com
“Are you younger than you think?” is the key question asked on this website, which showcases a unique test for calculating apparent “health age.” Physicians Mike Roizen and Mehmet Oz helped develop the test, which is a quick calculation of how old or young your body appears to be. Key data required include family/genetic history, lifestyle, medical history, medications and vitamins, sexual activity, and attitude toward life.
Blogs, articles, videos, support groups, health-condition tests, and action plans for wellness, diet, and fitness are also available. The “new and trending” category presents high-value information, such as a video demonstrating five effective exercises for pain. After taking the real-age test and consulting these other resources, users can create a customized action plan to improve their health and lower their apparent age.
WebMD.com/fitness-exercise
In addition to in-depth materials on a wide variety of health topics, this popular website provides a wealth of valuable information on healthy living, nutrition, food, and recipes. For example, the online “food and fitness planner” tool helps users customize a health plan, record diet and fitness activities, and track results.
Other tools and applications provide nutrition facts, assess diet, and calculate body mass index. The unique portion-size plate tool shows size equivalents for more than 70 common foods to help manage serving sizes. Smartphone applications for drug data andWebMD magazine are also available.
Tapping in to Community
SocialWorkout.com
One way to make exercise fun and more challenging is to create some friendly competition. SocialWorkout achieves this through “social goal-setting for big groups and brave individuals.” Members create a personal homepage, establish health goals, and start working toward meeting those goals. Progress can be tracked and shared with other members. The website has hundreds of goals to choose from—or you can create your own. At the time of this writing 38, 236 people were “crushing” 779 goals.
SocialWorkout also urges members to participate in group challenges, where group members provide encouragement and advice. Some current group challenges are “40 Days of Yoga Life,” “Sleeping Seven Hours a Day,” and “1,000 Minutes of Cardio in 30 Days.” Individual results can be updated on the challenge homepage leaderboard.
SparkPeople.com
The mission of this website is to “spark millions of people to reach their goals and lead healthier lives.” The site is loaded with resources on nutrition, fitness, wellness, and motivation, including food trackers, personalized meal plans, customized fitness plans, a point-based motivation program, message boards, articles, and recipes.
“SparkTeams” are groups of people who share common goals and interests and provide support and encouragement. Teams are started by members with specific interests. For example, “Taming Your Sweet Tooth” and the “Eight-Week Diabetes Weight Loss Challenge” are two current teams. Each team has its own message board forum for sharing tips and providing support.
Fitocracy.com
For those who are motivated by racking up points and advancing to new levels, Fitocracy is the perfect site. Its mission is to “make fitness a more fun, more addictive experience. Play Fitocracy to beat challenges, push your boundaries, and show your friends who is boss.”
“Players” start at Level 1 and are rewarded with points for each workout. Typical “Fitocrats” are motivated to beat their previous point levels each time they work out to attain the next level as quickly as possible. Online tools are available for recording results and tracking progress. Achievement badges are awarded when certain milestones are reached. Members often join groups and forums to share tips and inspire each other to reach their goals.
For more information on prevention and wellness, or to find a doctor of chiropractic near you, go to the Patient Information section on ACA’s Web site at www.acatoday.org or call 800-986-4636.
Written by Mark Crawford and published in the January/February 2013 issue of JACA Online, published by the American Chiropractic Association.
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