Blogs and websites about weight loss and exercise

[Updated - Nov. 26, 2007]. See also my post about how I used bento lunches to lose 30+ lbs [1] on our new sister site, Just Bento [2].

I don't have any plans to turn Just Hungry into a site dedicated just to diets and weight loss. There are however many, many sites that do just this.Here are just a few that I've found interesting.

Diet and weight loss news blogs:

• Diet Blog [3] is my favorite blog devoted exclusively to the subject of diets and various weight loss schemes. Measured in tone, it approaches popular diets and books with a healthy amount of skepticism and objectivity.
• Caloriecounter News [4] is a similar site that tracks diet and weight loss news.
• Hungry Girl [5] offers news and such. If you want to find out about low-calorie packaged snacks and 'diets foods' (only available for the most part in the U.S.) this is probably the place to go. There's no RSS feed here however.

Online calorie counters/diet planning sites (free)

Just a couple amongst many. While I do use one of these sites (Calorie Count) off and on, I prefer to keep my food journal on paper, in a small notebook I can carry around with me. I've played around with Palm versions and so on in the past (I no longer use a Palm device) but paper is by far the fastest. [Update:] My preferred calorie counting method now is the standalone version of CalorieKing [6], which is available for OSX and Windows. I do keep notes when I am away from the computer in a small notebook I carry around.

• CalorieLab Calorie Counter [7].
• Calorie Count [8], from About.com. Offers a handy calorie-counting toolbar for Firefox and Internet Explorer, with an "Eat Meter" bar that shows how much of your daily alloted calories you've already eaten.
• The Daily Plate [9] - features a slick Ajax-Web 2.0-esque interface and the ubiquitous "Beta" under the logo. This one is slick looking but has one glaring fault: it doesn't allow you to change the default quantify of a given food. So even if you ate a handful of peanuts, not the default amount of 1 cup, you can't enter the amount you actually ate. Hopefully they will correct this before taking the "beta" off.
• FitDay [10] - a veteran of the scene.

Lose weight and get fit with online buddies - social weight loss/fitness sites

If you are the type of person who gets along a lot better with friends or peers in the same situation to encourage you, there are many sites that let you do so. A comprehensive list of such sites is on the Diet Blog site [11]. Many of these offer many other features, like calorie counting, diet planning and more. I think that which site you might choose has a lot to do with how comfortable you feel in the community.

Sites that compare diet plans

• Compare Diets [12]
• Weight Loss on WebMD [13] (WebMD has an extremely annoying popup at the moment that warns people using Firefox 2.0 that their browser is outdated.)

Personal diet blogs

There are many personal diet blog type sites, too numerous to list. Some are journal-like and vary wildly in tone and content. Whether or now you get inspiration from these personal diet blogs is up to you. Others post recipes and tips for a particular diet plan, such as the very popular Kalyn's Kitchen [14], which is dedicated to recipes and more for the South Beach Diet [15].

Pay sites

There are several for-pay web sites to assist you in losing weight. The only one I have experience with is eDiets [16]. I discontinued my membership, for reasons I might get into in another post, but it may be exactly what you are looking for, if you can afford the fee. The best thing about eDiets may be that it's non-denominational: it offers a choice of several plans that you can tailor to your needs. Most other for-pay sites tend to be for a specific diet, such as South Beach Diet Online [17], The Biggest Loser Club [18], and of course Weight Watchers (several sites around the world).

Miscellaneous sites

• Video Fitness [19] is a long established site that reviews exercise videos.
• If running, jogging or walking is your preferred method if keeping fit, there are lots of free podcasts now that offer steady BPM (beats per minute) music to accompany you. My favorite at the moment is fitPod.com's fitMix podcasts [20]. Anyone want to offer non-pop, non-electronic tracks though? I also wonder if audiobooks with a very quiet 'pulse' in the background to keep up your pace would work.

Update: I've had to close comments on this post, since there is a certain web site that keeps trying to spam it. I don't care how worthy you think your site is, if it's offering a for-pay service and you keep leaving the link it's going to be considered spam. This is why so many diet- and weight loss related sites have a bad reputation. Sheesh.