Staying Motivated- Does supporting others help you succeed, too?

AMANDADUPLANTIS
AMANDADUPLANTIS's Photo Posts: 840
5/3/09 10:19 P
Absolutely! The more support that you give..the more you receive. In this journey, I will give and take as much as possible! When I provide support, I am ultimately supporting myself and every step I have made along the way. If my journey can help others...I think that is a great gift!

KARITIGER
KARITIGER's Photo Posts: 370
5/3/09 12:10 P

I'd love to say yes.. but I don't know exactly.. Online I encourage others.. in real life I don't want to be a blow hard and toot my own horn or drive my friends up the wall. .if they told me they wanted to lose weight and get in shape I'd be there in a heartbeat and be as supportive and encouraging as I could possibly be.. but right now my friends are not in the same place as I am and I have to be patient and sooner or later they will want to jump on the bandwagon... or not I'm their friend regardless...

Sometimes I can't help it .. my good feelings and good will spills over and I share with them what a difference a day makes.. or just a little accomplishment makes but I'm trying not to make that my whole deal..

weight loss is great.. feels great physically and emotionally but it's not everything..

I think being on a team like WW or Tops would be incredible.. atm I'm just here on sparkpeople.. sometimes I come here for support.. sometimes I come here just to blog.. sometimes I want it all.. it's there for me whatever I need it for and it's free..

Sometimes all I need is to just read a few posts and I feel back on track.. ready to face the day .. just knowing I'm not alone is what I needed...


LOTSACATSME
LOTSACATSME's Photo Posts: 1,435
5/3/09 11:34 A
Thats why I became a leader in team groups, helping them helps me.


ABIGAILSING
ABIGAILSING's Photo Posts: 38
5/3/09 6:45 A
Yes, it certainly encourages me. I feel invigorated to try harder in my own attempts to succeed, partly because encouraging others calls me to be accountable to make sure I am doing what I "preach", so to speak, but also because while I encourage another, they invariably encourage me.


ANGELZM21
ANGELZM21's Photo SparkPoints: (11,226)
Fitness Minutes: (20,227)
Posts: 1,114
5/2/09 3:23 P
Yepperz! When I see my spark buddies doing well and maybe I've falling off the boat a little with my eating habits or workouts it kicks me in the behind to catch up!! I hope they feel the same! ;)

FRITZFRITZ1
Posts: 4
5/1/09 2:11 P
My husband died December 4, 2009---he was very supportive of my efforts to lose weight. Now, my sister who lost weight inspired me to lose 50 lbs. between 1/09 and now.---I have another 50-60 lbs. more to go. Supporting others does help a person to succeed, to. Two years ago, my sister was overweight and through my knowledge of nutrition that I shared, she lost 4 dress sizes. Good luck!


BARBLOSEIT
BARBLOSEIT's Photo Posts: 389
4/30/09 9:40 P
Yes, it helps to surround me with people who need and want to do the right thing -- thus we police each other.

MS_BEHAVIN
MS_BEHAVIN's Photo SparkPoints: (4,084)
Fitness Minutes: (2,627)
Posts: 151
4/29/09 11:42 P
Yes, it takes me outside of myself and gets me thinking about others. Can make you feel not alone, there are others struggling the same way, others that are succeeding, others that have it worse.

Diet and Nutrition: Recommend the single best habit you have adopted

REEDSKI
REEDSKI's Photo Posts: 691
5/2/09 9:55 P
I haven't eaten in front of the TV since I started Spark People in March. In fact, I have barely had the TV on because I am busy exercising, trying new recipes, tracking my fitness and nutrition, and earning Spark Points.

"Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you; God alone is unchanging. Patience obtains all things. God alone suffices." St. Teresa of Avila Bookmark Prayer

•♥ ´¸.•*♥´¨) ¸.•*¨)
(¸.•´ ♥♥~Reedski~♥♥


SYLVERFLAMES
SYLVERFLAMES's Photo Posts: 14
5/2/09 9:24 P
tracking your food! I had no idea how much I was eating until I joined sparkpeople!


MARNIEA
Posts: 3
5/2/09 3:49 P
I totally agree with GIRL-Fusion that drinking 8 glasses of water/day and tracking my food are really really important. I've only been doing this for 4 days and have already lost 5 pounds!! I make so much better choices when I track and the water really seems to fill me up so I'm not wanting to eat all the time.

Spark America

SparkAmerica is a health and fitness challenge designed to motivate Americans to improve their health by taking small consistent positive action steps.

SparkPeople members can participate in the challenge simply by logging their fitness minutes on the site using our normal fitness trackers (calories burned tracker, strength tracker, and Quick Track). Your fitness minutes will go towards the overall SparkAmerica total minutes and also towards the total for your local city, state and country.

You can also keep up with your personal fitness minute goals and totals on this page. At SparkPeople, we've always found that small consistent actions – even small ones like doing 10 minutes of light exercise several times per week – can make someone’s chances of creating and maintaining a healthy lifestyle skyrocket. SparkAmerica is a fun and positive way to accomplish this! (from SparkPeople)

Spark People encourages users to have healthy competition in regards to achieving health goals. The site also ranks cities that accrued the most fitness minutes.

Staying Motivated-How has your life improved since you joined SP?

PRETTYHOT
PRETTYHOT's Photo SparkPoints: (522)
Fitness Minutes: (525)
Posts: 15
5/3/09 9:04 P
Joining SP has been the greatest decision I have made in months...Finally I found the right spoorting system where I can managed everything at once to help me stay fit...I've been so happy with SP that I told my sister to enroll and she could not be any happier now..

VUKELK
Posts: 81
5/3/09 8:05 P
Absolutley! Some days I'm not always consistent on
journaling in SP but I still make fairly healthy choices on food. I couldn't receive emails for a couple days so was behind on my SP emails. I read every one and find very helpful information in most of them. I have a little catch up to do.

CASSIECAT
Posts: 34
5/3/09 6:02 P
I have been eating much more in the way of fresh produce, and I am so much more aware of my portions and where i need to make improvements in terms of the balance of my overall diet. I've also been inspired to try new recipes and look for new healthy foods to enjoy.

SUSANLYNN50
SUSANLYNN50's Photo Posts: 3,077
5/2/09 7:01 P
I have made lots of friends, become an inspiring person for others, found out a lot of things about myself, gotten help that I don't think I would have done on my own and lost weight the smart way.

FLUTTERSBY79
FLUTTERSBY79's Photo Posts: 413
5/2/09 11:26 A
I know that I am more confident and don't feel as alone as I was before joining SP.

I have more motivation to do exercise and other activities because of the clubs and teams I have joined.

I love the atmosphere. It is for not just dieting, but an overall healthy lifestyle, which is so important to me!

Thanks SparkPeople! :-)


JANICEBROWN38
JANICEBROWN38's Photo Posts: 18
5/1/09 2:48 P
I've got a healthier outlook on fitness and diet since joining. I need structure to my daily routine and doing the nutrition tracker every day keeps me on track of what I'm eating from day to day otherwise I would just eat everything I felt like as I absolutely love my food. Putting in my fitness also motivates me to do something during the day to burn calories so I have something to show to myself that I'm trying. The articles are full of useful tips and great recipes. If SP has been a failure to some is because they have let it be that way as SP is only there to guide people to feel better in themselves and is not responsible for weight gain in people who havent helped themselves.

BRENDIE319
BRENDIE319's Photo Posts: 212
5/1/09 8:17 A
The articles have helped educate me more on health and fitness. The exercise video have helped me change my routine and to make things more interesting. The calorie tracker is the best! Food journaling is much easier now!

Reflections

Before I added the SparkPage, I didn't feel I was actively involved in the community. After having my SparkPage, I feel that I have my own community now who actually "knows" about me. When posting on big forums, there were over 100,000 members posting as well. and I did not feel like most of them were replying to each other. They were rather replying to the question the starter posted.

But now I realize that the SparkTeams are in more intimate settings where people know each other (their faces, interests, progress). Also, friends would visit each other to motivate each other with statements like "Happy Tuesday..!! Have fun working out cuz the scale is going DOWNNNNNNNNN!!!!!..... lol." ( CINDYY0O 4/14/2009 12:03:43 PM)

In a way, SparkPages are similar to Facebook in that you can set your status, and your recent activities such as leaving comments, changing status, becoming friends with others) are logged in the page. Once I am a friend of another user, I will get a feed of her activities. Also, I have the option to receive emails in regard to forum post or comments that I left on others' pages. This is convenient in that I do not get emails for all little activities that other users do, but only for activities that I care.

It was very easy for me to become involved in SparkPeople. Not only were people friendly, but they are also positive and motivational. They would reply me with detailed, and friendly comments. I wonder if this is the culture in SparkPeople. I am also curious that if getting featured in "SparkPeople Motivator!" has to do anything with that.


Anyway, I am collecting questions to ask once I get to know some of these members pretty well.
1. Why did you decide to create a SparkTeam by yourself? What was the motivation?
2. You seem very honest and detailed about your health life on your page. Can I ask why?
3. How do you spend your time in SparkPeople (Forums, SparkTeams, SparkPages, articles, logs) and how long?
4. Do you know most of your friends personally?
5. Have you invited friends to SparkPeople?
6. Are you honest with your progress?
7. You seem not to be bothered posting your images or weight. Why is that?
8. Where do you mostly get your motivation from?
and more to come!

Support Chain

I made 3 friends today! and I already feel motivated to continue my workout.
I simply went to College Students SparkTeam and read people's posts. I visited a user's SparkPage if the post was interesting or motivating. When I visited AZILEE80's page, I wanted to know how she set the background image. So I left her a comment on the page asking her how to do that. Within 30 minutes, I got an email saying that I got a new comment.

AZILEE80 4/15/2009 2:02:24 PM
Hi! Thanks for the comment on my blog!
If you go up in the top right to edit page and then when the edit screen comes up, you go to where you can change the colors and everything. You select upload background image and you should be able to go to any jpeg file and add it. Hope that helps!

Then, I went to her page again, and this time I gave her a SparkGoodie that says "Best wishes." In the optional message box, I wrote "I want a SparkGoodie lol =)."
Within an hour, I got my first SparkGoodie which is a smiley face!

Browsing other members' SparkPages and their profile pictures, I realized that I wanted to have friends who are similar to me in terms of physique, interests, and age. So I visited KENDRALONG's SparkPage. She has a big icon that says "Lost 10 pounds with SparkPeople." Losing 10 pounds is not an easy job! Also, I admired that she wrote detailed, honest descriptions about her life on the main page.

I wrote a comment, "I like how you're honest about your story! You are my motivator of the day!" Within thirty minutes, she also added me as a friend. This was great because it showed me that she wanted to help me out.

My own SparkPage

I decided to get more involved in the community. So, I visited College Students SparkTeam that I joined to introduce myself to the community. Then, I saw a post "A Few Spark Starters" that said I should first create my own SparkPage. So I went and created a page.

It took me about an hour all together to finish the page. Because I am into web design, I wanted the page to look decent. I first changed the colors for the background and text. I also added pictures of me climbing up the tree to show my adventurous side and of Cornell campus.

I also FINALLY realized how to get the weight loss tracker that is on every user's post. Weight loss tracker shows the user's progress to his/her weight goals as an image. I chose an ocean background with the sun pointing at my weight.

Also, I edited "My Goals," "My Program," and my "Personal Information."
Writing this helped me to really think about what my health goals are and the steps that I could take everyday to achieve it. Here is what I came up with:

My Goals:
1. To go to the gym twice a week Monday and Wednesday mornings

My Program:
1. Sleep early the day before going to the gym

2. Set the alarm clock an hour before I wake up so I don't be lazy and get my butt up dancing to the music

3. Stay motivated with the help of other members!

Personal Information:
I'm from NYC.
Hit me a message or leave me comment! I'll get right back at you =)

Ultimately, I am very satisfied with my page and I want to add more content by adding a blog entry, adding friends, and SparkGoodies (free gifts that others can give you!).

Unanswered Questions

I visited "SparkPeople Game Room" and was excited about fun people have with games.
Most games were very simple and easy to play. For example, Crotty posted game "Change a Letter" on 3/19/09 11:56PM and started with "robe," and the next person replied with "role", and then it became "pole", and after 2214 words, it became "Hulk." There are also silly games such as "Last person to post wins!" which has all together 17903 posts and it is still going on.

I also wanted to gain more SparkPoints so I took a quick poll. The question was "What kind of junk food do you usually crave?" and I selected all of the above (Salty, sweet, crunchy, creamy, and cold). After I submitted, the result showed that "sweet" came first (41%), next to "all of the above" (25%). I also received 3 extra SparkPoints.

I recognized that there are more women than men on the site. Maybe the design of the site is targeted toward women, with pretty graphics, images, and lots and lots of content. There are also lots of features on the site, and lots of effort and time to put to keep up with everything on the site. Also, I think women are more conscious of their weight/health than men, and thus would like to learn more and share stories with others.

In addition, I learned that the design of the site shapes the behavior of users. On most pages, users find activity stats everywhere. Activity stats are dynamic numbers that show various information such as calories burned, pounds lost, cups of water drunk, recent exercises, SparkPoints earned etc. This information encourages and further motivates users to work harder to achieve their goals by showing others' statistics and welcoming users to contribute to the stats. User's goal achievement status that appears on every post also reminds the user and others of the goals they are trying to accomplish. Also, SparkPoints encourages users to earn points by doing things that bring them closer to their goals.

In the end, I have few questions that are still not answered:
-Do they support each other outside the virtual community? (the extent to which they encourage each other)
-Are most people honest about their weight and progress?
-What do people do on SparkPeople most of the time?

Validity of Claims in Posts

S_BOETTCHER90 asked in SparkPeople Cafe forum, "What is your opinion on artificial sweeteners?" There were many, many answers, but after reading all of them, I was still not sure if artificial sweeteners are good or bad. BASOPHA says on 3/19/09 6:11AM that "artificial sweeteners contain aspartame" which "has been linked to diabetes, lupus and other serious illnesses.

Anarie says on 3/18/09 11:00pm that "scientific studies have found that when you take people who think they get headaches from artificial sweeteners, and give half of them sugar and half of them sweetener, there no difference in the number of headaches they get."

Others comment that they just don't take them because they're bad and would rather eat honey. These comments and replies provide lots of information, but whether or not these sources are reliable were questionable. Even though S_BOETTCHER90 did not reply again after the initial post, he probably took some reply as an answer and was satisfied, or looked more into chemical aspartame in artificial sweeteners online to verify.
The extent to which these posts are helpful to people is unknown, but since people keep asking questions on the message boards, I think it is pretty safe to say that these posts give people some useful information to start solving the questions.

People talking about SparkPeople site

I learned that countless ads are all over the site, and they may be the reason why the site is able to provide the service free to everyone. The problem is that some of the ads are inappropriate, and people talk about this in message boards.
In SparkPeople Cafe, STELLAIU went on to read some blog and noticed the McDonald's ad.

STELLAIU on 10/5/08 3:53 PM: I went to read a blog about the 'healthy' chicken snack wraps from popular fast food restaurants and I noticed this Big Mac and a chance to win a $100 McDonald's gift card. Although McDonald's is making healthier choices for consumers, to me, this seems a little out of place for this ad to be on Sparkpeople?

DONNAMARIEM on 10/5/08 10:49 PM: I notice many unhealthy ads on spark. I don't care if Skinny Cow ice cream has less fat because its still ice cream and they probably add some chemical to add flavor back from when the fat is removed. I thinkthere was some hostess cupcakes or something too in 100 calorie pack ad... sorry its NOT HEALTHY just a portion control gimick!
Gotta laugh or just ignore them because because of sponsors the site is free to us!

ANARIE advocates SparkPeople and suggests in 10/5/08 5:03 PM that "SparkPeople doesn't choose or approve those ads. They have an agreement that lets Google place ads based on keywords on the page. SO can list ads they don't want to allow, but it's hard to keep it updated. If you see one that's not appropriate, try to get a screen shot of it, and click on it to get the URL it leads to. Then you can report it to SparkPeople and they'll try to get it eliminated."

SparkPeople Groups

Besides message boards, users can join or create SparkTeams to achieve their health goals. I joined "College Students," "NY Spark Team," and "Living Healthy In Our 20's."
In "College Students," users were interested in stress eating, depression, time management, and school information of others.

In topic "my biggest diet pitfalls in college are...",
LAVINAAHUJA says on 7/25/08 10:37 AM: I'm a last minute person, so when I have assignments due I'm usually working on it to the exclusion of everything else!!! So there goes the excercise! I try to stick to healty eating habits (by stocking up on healthy foods) but don't really get the time to excercise!!!

SUNNYDAYZ2 says on 3/1/09 9:04 PM: Mine is hands down going out and drinking with my friends. We will take like 5 shots before we leave (500 cals right there) and most likely have at least two more drinks while out (200). Then we will come home at like 2 or 3, make unhealthy food that sounds good, and eat a lot! That's over 1000 added onto my day! I've gotten better about limiting drinking though, but when I was putting on weight I was going out thursday, friday, saturday..eek
Also I have a prob with stress and emotional eating..

What I realized is that in most message boards, people are busy answering the topic, but not necessarily responding to previous posts. I am wondering if people post things to get SparkPoints, or just sharing their stories honestly and looking at what others have to say motivate them enough to pursue their goals.

SparkTeams help gather people with similar goals and interests. Also, since members in the SparkTeams have similar interests and lifestyles, they can understand what each other's going through better, resulting in the increase for chances of success for people.

Motivation!!!

People stay motivated on SparkPeople. This is shown by their countless participation in message boards. Also, today, I discovered SparkPoints, which can be earned and collected by performing tasks that help people reach their goals. Exercising, logging your food intake, reading articles, and even spinning the SparkPoints Wheel each day for logging-in would collect SparkPoints. SparkPoints follows wherever the user decides to go. Every time a user posts something, user's image and SparkPoints would show as well.

When I logged in, I pressed the button, and it spun realistically (probably used Flash), and I earned 4 points! It felt really good! The SparkPoints page also shows the SparkPoints earned by all members, and the number changes dynamically. It made me feel competitive, and I wanted to gain more points.

So I decided to do gain more points by doing more challenges. I read a dailySpark blog entry, which gave me 3 points more. I read about a custom-made energy bar called YouBar. It looked pretty disgusting and I would not like to try it. At the end of the blog, there is a button that says "Get your SparkPoints." Unless the user clicks on that button, the user won't get the points.

There are also other challenges that users could take to motivate themselves, and get points as well. Completing "Getting Started Checklist" would earn 25 points, watching an inspirational news story about SparkPeople would earn 10 points, and even posting to message boards earn 3 points.
Best of all, SparkPeople community is also motivated by each other's concerns and advice.

CRAVING A BIG FAT JUICY CHEESEBURGER!

SparkPeople use message boards as forums.
The message boards are organized by topics such as "Fitness and Exercise," "Staying Motivated," "Site/Technical Help," "SparkPeople Challenges," "SparkPeople Game Room," and "Panic! Button for Immediate Help." Usually I found the messages related to the topic of the room, but then there are posts that are not related to the topic.

I visited the "Panic! Button for Immediate Help" room. The message boards in SparkPeople are different from other forums in that each post is displayed in a round-square talk bubble. In the talk bubble, the users' status of the weight loss is displayed as a graphic. It could also show the their favorite quotes or lists of rewards if they hit certain weights.



I found "Craving a big fat juicy cheeseburger!" thread honest and informative because RJZIMMERMAN shares her concern, and other try to help her out by describing what they do or sympathizing with her.

RJZIMMERMAN 2/17/09 10:48 PM: Tonight I just want so bad to devour a cheeseburger! To make matters worse I have a coupon for a free one! Would it hurt to eat one just one time?!? What i I left out the cheese and mayo...it might not be so bad. SOMEONE HELP!

BAM0827 2/18/09 8:36 AM: I'm with Carena - figure out how to work it into your calorie range. I eat a lot of things people say are "bad" (I hate that term in relationship to food) and almost always fit it into my Spark range or at the very most in a maintenance range. It's all about balance through the day.
I have hamburgers a lot - but I make them at home (summer on the grill). I get 93% lean beef, wheat buns, and my partner uses 2% cheddar slices (I don't care for cheeseburgers much). Add some tomatoes, lettuce, ketchup/mustard - it's good. Good without thinking that I have to eat celery the rest of the day.
If you decide that you want the cheeseburger at the restaurant - have it but don't get the french fries that generally come with it. There's no nutrional value there (at least beef has nutrional value)

Later on, with other replies,
RJZIMMERMAN replies on 2/18/09 9:52 AM: Thanks so much for the advice! What I ended up doing was taking 2% piece of cheese and some lean tukey deli meat and rolling it up. It made the craving pass and my husband helped too! So nice to have the support you need! Now I will be better prepared for when this fast-food craving attacks again!

Signing up for SparkPeople

According to SparkPeople, it has over 5 million people joining to lose weight and make healthy lifestyle change through information sharing and community support.It has been named "Best Health Website" in 3 years straight from 2006 by Business Week.

My first impression of SparkPeople was that it looked like it has lots of information and has a nice, Web 2.0 look and feel. The site uses bright colors, clean, big fonts, and gradient boxes.

When I signed up, the site asked me if I wanted to lose weight or not lose weight and lead a healthy lifestyle. Then, I needed to indicate my conditions and interests, such as knee pain, daily exercises etc.

The Start page lists my information and networks for the site in an organized way. I could track my nutrition, fitness, weight, and post on message boards. I'm not sure if I would update what I ate everyday, or even do all the exercises they recommend everyday, but I might create a little goal such as losing 2 pounds because it is doable.

I also breezed through the message boards, and there are more than 30 posts and hundreds of comments per day. SparkPeople is an active community!